Love And Rage, Volume 7, Number 5, October / November 1996

Contenido:

Er ¡Conformando el.

Frente Zapatista!

ae Muerte y Traición
en Chinameca

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LOVE AND RAGE

~~ A REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHIST NEWSPAPER OCT./NOV.1996

By MICHELLE BILLIES

2 e work all day! Now give us real
Wiss shouted a small, coura-
geous group of marchers in the

New York City Labor Day Parade. Marching
single file, hanging onto chains reminiscent
of a chain gang, the workers demanded real
jobs with livable wages, workplace protec-
tions, and benefits. Like most employees,
they work hard at their jobs. Unlike most

employees, they do not get paid. They are.

people on public assistance who are forced
into NYC’s workfare program, called the
Work Experience Program or WEP.

In WEP, people who receive welfare must
add their cash benefit to their food stamps,
divide by minimum wage, and work that
number of hours per month for the city.
This gives the impression of regular, part-
time jobs, but consider: they have no choice
of where to work, no health or safety pro-
tections, no guarantee of childcare, no
grievance procedures, no days off, no

a)

“Unless I want to turn my back on
what's really going on in America, I
will either be in jail or dead. There’s
no way around it.”

A

jac

- By MATTHEW QUEST

= —Tupac Shakur

wounds suffered in a Las Vegas drive-

by shooting. He was 25 years old. His
dual careers, in music and in film, garnered
sparkling reviews, mega-sales, millions of
fans, as well as repeated criticism. It was
truly amazing the grace with which, as a
rapper and actor, he tied together feelings
of love with the righteous anger that was a
family legacy. We should not reduce his
short life merely to a narrow reflection of
gangsta’ rap, as portrayed by advocates of
censorship. Nor should we see his true
crimes as fabrications to smear what some
see as an exceptional militant or revolu-
tionary. Instead we celebrate his unique
contributions to Hip-Hop culture and his
potential to transform that culture. We
should be honest why he did not live up to
that potential and assess what he truly rep-
resents.

Rap was born in street festivals in New
York City in the late 1970s as a mix of
party chants, and compared to today, mod-
erate macho boasting, primarily about sex
and material possessions. It was founded

Tus Shakur died September 13 from

specifically as an alternative to gang vio-

lence. What was profound at its origin was
the tendency for certain artists to convey a
perspective of Black liberation that spoke to
youth of the urban ghetto. Hip-Hop explod-
ed commercially in the mid-80s with inner
cities gripped hy police brutality, gang vio-
lence, drug abuse, and joblessness. A new
generation of profound and angry young
voices arose, in songs from Grandmaster
Flash's “the Message” to Boogie Down

- Productions’ “Criminal Minded.” At the

height of the conservative Reagan-Bush

exemption for education, and no job when
their benefits and workfare end.

WEP has been touted as a job training
program but in fact is a structure that
exploits poor people for their labor. LaDon
James, an activist, college student, and
mother of two on welfare reports that peo-
ple are not trained and assessments for

appropriate placements and evaluations are

simply not done. In fact, Mayor Giuliani is
replacing city workers with WEP to save
money and get some extra work done in
the bargaif. WEP workers are cleaning
parks, filling clerical slots, even training
new hires to do their jobs when they them-
selves were not allowed to apply. These
workers have no other choice; in NYC there
is only one job for every 12 workers who
need one.

Brenda Stewart, also an activist and
mother on welfare explains, “I’ve been in

(Continued to page 15)

years most of the previous generation of
Black liberation fighters were already co-
opted or eliminated: This made the emer-
gence of radical voices which could speak
to youth crucial.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, a. more
nihilistic sub-culture of rap was born in the
depressed southern California cities of
Compton, Long Beach, and South-Central
Los Angeles. Gangsta’ rap was popularized
by the group NWA, who’s song “Fuck tha’
Police” became an inner-city youth anthem,
and drew the attention of the FBI and many
politicians. Some of the gangsta’ rappers
admitted (or boasted about) transforming
themselves from small-time drug dealers,
pimps, and members in gangs such as the
Bloods and Crips into rappers. Many,
despite their newfound wealth, continued
this lifestyle. Gangsta’ rap mirrored real life
stories of flesh and blood battles between
gangs, and of police brutality. But unlike
earlier rap, it seemed to be without hope or
a perspective of freedom other than being
the sole survivor of deadly conflict for
supremacy in the streets. Tupac, his life and
art a product of both coasts, would personi-
fy the struggle to transcend the nihilism of
the inner city to a radical: perspective of
Black liberation.

In New York City, Tupac Amaru Shakur
was born a child of war to Afeni Shakur, a
member of the Black Panther Party and the
New York 21. She was jailed with them on
charges of conspiring to bomb public places
in 1971. Tupac was born shortly after they
were acquitted and released. In interviews
Tupac would boast, “I was in jail even as a
fetus.” Most of his extended family, full of
Black revolutionaries (including Mutulu,
Assata, and Zayd Shakur), wound up jailed,
exiled, or dead during the 1970s and ’80s.
Afeni Shakur went on to raise her son, and
a daughter, in poverty and sometimes
homelessness in New York and Baltimore.
Afeni has acknowledged that her drug
addiction and unfortunate lack of child care

Zapatista Encuentro Founds

International of Hope

By CHRISTOPHER DAY

or eight days, 4,000 people from 43
Ersinics gathered together in

Zapatista-controlled territory in the
Lacandona jungle in Chiapas, Mexico to
participate in the First Intercontinental
Encounter Against Neoliberalism and for
Humanity. They came to express their soli-
darity with the Zapatistas, to share the sto-
ries of their own struggles, and to build
what Subcomandante Marcos called “an
international of hope.” While the long-term
results remain to be seen, the Encuentro (as
it was called in Spanish) may prove to be
one of the most significant international
gatherings of radicalsin decades. ~

There was an inevitable surrealism to the

shaped Tupac's early childhood. Although
Tupac rapped about having lived a hardcore
urban life, and despite the troubles of his
family during his childhood, his talents
found at times more ‘stable mentoring as
well.

- He studied acting and ballet at the presti-
gious High School for the Performing Arts
in Baltimore. When the family moved to
Marin City, California, in 1988, he/attended
the upscale Tamalpais High School nearby,
though never graduating. With his first rap
group in Marin City, One Nation Emcees,
Tupac was known as “MC New York.” His-
lyrics conveyed the Black liberation politics
taught by his mother. However, spending
much of his life in search of a father figure,
he became drawn to a California culture of

Encuentro. The Zapatistas have carved out.a
small liberated territory in the mountainous
jungles of Chiapas that is surrounded by the

Mexican Army. They have revolutionized” —

the still very traditional culture of the
indigenous Mayan peoples, arming them
with a liberatory vision of a new society.
Then they invited 4,000 people, speaking
over a dozen languages, to converge, in the
middle of the rainy season, on their desper-
ately poor communities for the purpose of
founding a very loosely (or very poetically)
defined international network to overthrow
the whole international capitalist order.

(Continued to page 16)

drug dealers and ghetto gangsters. which
would become the canvas for his art... |,

After working in 1989-90 with Digital
Underground, best known for the single
“Humpty Dance,” Tupac started a solo
career in 1991 with the album “2Pacalypse
Now.” He released four more albums:
“Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.” (1993); a col-
laboration with other rappers, “Thug Life,
Vol. 1” (1994); “Me Against the World”
(1995); and “All Eyez on Me” (1996); He
began a career „s a movie actor in the
Ernest Dickerson film “Juice” (1991). He
starred opposite Janet Jackson in John
Singleton’s “Poetic Justice” (1993), and
played a supporting role in the film “Above
the Rim” (1994). He was blacklisted after
being promised the starring role in
Singleton’s “Higher Learning” (1995), which
would have been his most politicized film.

Tupac’s lyrics were marked by contra-
diction. He spoke of gang conflict and
“thug life” in a celebratory tone as well
as in cautionary tales. He was consistent
in other ways. His music celebrated
killing police officers for harassment of
the Black community. In the spring of
1992, a Texas state trooper was killed by
a teenager who was listening to
“2Pacalypse Now,” which included songs
about killing cops, like “Soulja’s Story”
and “I Don’t Give a Fuck” (the record also
contains the outright revolutionary song
“Words of Wisdom” which shouts out to
Geronimo Pratt, Mutulu Shakur and
Assata Shakur at the end). Vice President
Dan Quayle calle 1 for the record’s censor-
ship. A year ago, presidential candidate
Bob Dole attacked him as well.

Tupac's songs “Brenda's Got a Baby,”

“Keep Ya Head Up,” and “Dear Mama,”

released on different albums over time,
conveyed the responsibility of fatherhood
and respect for Black women in a much

(Continued to page 21)

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 « LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 1

The “General Strikes Rock Ontario” arti-
cle in Vol.7, #2 mistakenly reads, starting
in paragraph 9, “Those services not shut
down included...” It should have read,
“Those services shut down included...” The
same paragraph also says that the buses
were “compelled to run”; in fact they were
compelled not to run. We apologize for
any confusion caused by these errors,
which significantly changed the meanings
of those statements.

es we print do not necessarily repre-
HONS. e Federation ar af any.

The article “Workfare is Warfare” states
in paragraph 6 that trainees make $12.50 a
day, plus travel expenses. It then says that
this totals $520 a month. $520 a month is
actually the maximum welfare payment.
Another update from the same Workfare
article: seven of 17 of the laid off city
workers referred to in the article have been
recalled due to the low productivity of the
present program at Third Sector,
Hamilton. x

Albuquerque Love and Rage
PO Box 25412
Albuquerque, NM 87125

Amor y Rabia - Mexico
Paseo de la Reforma #32
Suite 1-358

Colonia Juarez CP
Mexico, DF ME

PAGE 2 + LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

GOVERNMENTS
THEY NEED YO

Benefit Tape for
Rutonome Antifa (M)

This mix-tape was put together by
Antifa-Aktion Passau, a German
antifascist group, to help raise money
for Autonome Antifa (M).

Funds raised will help cover legal
costs associated with the German
government’s aborted trial against
Autonome Antifa (M). Even though
the trial isn’t happening, they still
have fines to pay as well as legal
costs. The tape is a mix of styles
and is very well put together.

Order a copy for $10 and
support the German anti-fascist
movement!

Love & Rage, PO Box 853 Stuyvesant Station, New York, NY 10009

'T FALL BY THEMSELVES.
LP. JOIN THE FEDERATION.

amilton Love and Rage SF / Bay Area Love and Rage
PO Box 3606
Oakland, CA 94609-0606

Inrfeds@burn.ucsd.edu

eement with
'ge,:gét involved!
ps listed here, or
ederation Office in
Minneapolis tor information.

Welfare as We Knew It

By CHRISTOPHER DAY

he bipartisan war on the poor advanced
Te a new level-with the recent passage of

“Welfare Reform” legislation. True to Bill
Clinton’s 1992 campaign promises, this legisla-
tion will eliminate “welfare as we know it.” The
legislation largely eliminates the federal gov-
ernment's commitment to providing assistance
to the poorest and most vulnerable members of
society. In place of this commitment the federal
government will make “block grants” to the
various states which they can distribute more or
less as they see fit. This legislation puts into law
the de facto practice of the Clinton administra-
tion. Since his inauguration Clinton has granted
waivers of federal welfare requirements to state
after state so that they might “experiment” with
workfare and similar schemes. The net effect of
his policy has been to drive tens of thousands
of people off public assistance. The tragic con-
sequences of this policy were brought starkly
home in New York City last month when a
woman who had been kicked off food stamps
six months earlier was charged with starving
her youngest child to death.

THE NEW SLAVERY

By eliminating federal entitlement require-
ments the recent legislation creates a situa-
tion in which the different states will be com-
pelled to compete with each other to develop
the harshest, most “business friendly” system
possible. Workfare of course is nothing more
than a post-modern form of indentured servi-
tude. Workfare also provides an opportunity
for a wholesale assault on organized labor as
former welfare recipients are paid measly
wages for work that would have otherwise
been covered by union contracts.

It is widely accepted that Clinton signed
the legislation passed by a Republican
Congress in order to deprive Bob Dole and
Congressional Republicans of an issue with
which to run for President against Clinton.
And Clinton has contributed to this percep-
tion by suggesting that if re-elected he will
seek to modify the law. But this view is far
too generous to the Democrats.

NO LESSER EVIL

The principle that “only Nixon can go to
China” applies here. Only a Democratic
President could have gotten away with sign-
ing this sort of legislation without sparking
riots across the country. Those who are trying
to convince themselves to vote for Clinton
because Dole will be worse should keep this
dynamic in mind.

The elimination of the meager guarantees
offered by the old welfare system is simply
the logical application of the neo-liberal eco-
nomic policies that have the support of the
whole ruling class. The only thing that has a
hope of stopping this relentless assault on
poor and working class people in the US and
around the world is a renewed mass move-
ment of resistance that raises the costs of
these policies for those who rule.

That is the one positive aspect of the
recent legislation. Welfare was never devel-
oped to empower poor people. Welfare was
developed in response to insurgency by the
poor. It was developed not simply to feed the
hungry but to control] them. The constant
bureaucratic intrusions into the lives of the
poor that accompanied Food Stamps, AFDC
and Public Assistance were not accidental
features of the system.

As tens of thousand more people are
pushed off the welfare rolls there will be a
significant change in how poor people will
have to organize their lives. In order to get
their most basic needs met poor people will
have to develop new structures—both to put
food on the table, and to resist the relentless
attacks coming down on them. Of course
these structures exist to some degree in the
informal networks of friends and family that
are already so crucial to survival under this
system—but the new dire circumstances will
force us all to find new ways to take our
lives into our own hands. These might
include squatting buildings, organizing
workfare workers, setting up breakfast or
other “feed the people” programs, in addi-
tion to strengthening old traditions of com-
munity solidarity like rent parties and shar-
ing childcare.

-SEIZE THE TIME `

Another positive aspect of the “Welfare
Reform” legislation is that it will eliminate a
whole layer of social workers who- have
served as a brake on the militancy of the
poor (which after all is what they are paid to
do) for far too long.

Of course both of these things will only
have positive consequences if people take
responsibility for seizing on the new oppor-
tunities represented by the new situation.
The powers that be are calculating that they
can get away with these attacks without
generating the sort of resistance that is our
only hope for a better way of living. It is the
job of everybody who cares to prove that
they calculated wrong by initiating that
resistance now. *

Politics and the Abortion Debate:

— Siena Aether BOOST AV]

= By CAROL MASON

o to be invisible...] paint my

face and travel at night. You don't
know it's over until you're in a body
bag. You don't know until election

night.”
Ralph Reed, Executive Director,
Christian Coalition

eople keep asking me about the
P rcsiatican National Convention.
Instead of Pat Buchanan ranting
about the culture wars, there was Susan
Molanari speaking about being pro-choice
in the Republican party. Was this an indi-
cation that the abortion debate is waning,
and that the extreme right faction of the
Republican party is losing its bite?
Don’t be fooled by the seeming absence
of the fascist, former presidential candidate
Pat Buchanan, the Christian Coalition’s
founder, Pat Robertson, or his protégé,
Ralph Reed. These far-right patriarchs, their
institutions, and their constituencies can
afford to be invisible during the elections of
| 1996 because they are so ensconced in the
Republican party.
Most leftists and liberals who can read
| between the lines understand that the tele-
| vised convention was a showy feel-good
| gloss on the reprehensible Republican party
. platform, which was designed by the most
. ultraright-thinking of Republican men. The
platform was flown in under the weak radar
of the mainstream media. Like the “stealth
bombers” in the 1991 Gulf War and like the
| “stealth candidates” in elections of local
school boards, library boards, and city
councils who hide their extreme right-wing
views until they are in positions of power,
the Republic Convention was a sneaky
vehicle. It smuggled some of the most
fascistic language and proposals into the
Republican platform.
My guess is that right-wingers know
they can’t win the presidential election this
year; but they have been victorious already
in stretching the political imagination of
| Republicans even further to-the right. They

have their sights aimed four:years down the
road, and they are happy to lie low until
| then, out of the public eye, working under-
cover to establish the platform with which
the Republican party and, in _Tesponse, the

Democrats will have to contend in the year

2000.

Playing the Republicans and Democrats
off of one another is not a new idea for
right-wing forces in the US. In fact, it is the
modus operandi of the New Right, which
was founded as a response to the defeat of
conservative Barry Goldwater by Lyndon
Johnson in the 1964 presidential election.
Richard Viguerie, one of the key behind-
the-scenes conservatives and author of “The
New Right: We're Ready to Lead,” explains
why his generation of conservatives decid-
ed not to forge a third party, but instead to
manipulate the two-party system of
Republicans and Democrats.

“For a while we in the New Right
thought the country needed a third
party. As 1 have said, we came to see
that this was wrong. Under a two-
party system, the parties don't really
lead; they follow. Their business is not
to form coalitions, as in Europe, with-
in which they can keep their own
shape and identity. In America their
business is to build majorities, which
means, very often, putting principles
on the back burner.”

So genuine principles have to find insti-
tutional support outside the parties in order
to influence the parties. As long as only the
liberals did this, they kept gaining relent-
lessly. The lack of popular support didn’t
matter. A well-organized minority can
often defeat an unorganized majority.

I believe that Viguerie and his cohorts
succeeded in turning the tables so that the
Right is now an extraordinarily well-orga-
nized minority. It has made terrific progress
toward defeating the unorganized majority
of US citizens and residents who do not
abide by the fascist ideas the Right is pro-
moting. The Right has gained astonishing
power by “influencing the parties” and
maintaining a “two-party system” for the
purposes of manipulating them. Once we
understand the importance for the New
Right of keeping a two-party political sys-
tem intact, we can see how the two-sided
“moral debate” over abortion is also a polit-
ical system exploited by the New Right.

Like the two political parties of
Republicans and Democrats, “pro-life” and
“pro-choice” factions have been manipulat-
ed by the New Right. Using abortion as a

nee Right ee
ed to power by
encouraging sin-
gle-issue voting
around the abor-
tion controversy,
which ceased to be
a political cause
and became a
moral debate.
Because the debate
has been estab-
lished as a fight
between the fetus’s
“life” and the
woman's “choice,”
it's difficult to
remember how
abortion arose as a
radical political
cause, a first step
on the way to
women's libera-
tion. It's difficult
to remember that
this philosophical
debate about
morality mutated
out of a campaign
to increase the
political status of
all women. But remembering, rehearsing,
and re-establishing the history of radical
women's quest to obtain reproductive free-
dom is crucial to stopping the ultraright-
wing forces that are making fascism not
just plausible but palatable in the US today.
Re-establishing this history is one way we
can accomplish what Viguerie says would
threaten the New Right's successful manip-
ulation of the two-party system: it's a way
we can forge real, radical coalitions.

Specifically, 1 think it's important to
remember that radical women in the 1960s
wanted to repeal all laws that restricted
abortion. Roe v. Wade (1973) did not
accomplish this. In fact, Roe v. Wade con-
tradicted to the fight to repeal abortion
laws because it established national guide-
lines for restricting abortion.

Liberal feminists exalted the national
guidelines put forth in Roe as a consum-
mate victory because they were satisfied

with moral reform. Liberal feminism then

began to professionalize under the auspices
of being “pro-choice,” which simplified and
reduced the complex, multi-faceted battle
for reproductive freedom to a matter of per-
sonal, individuated privacy. What began as
a radical fight against governmental regu-
lation of abortion became a liberal, plain-
tive request for governmental protection of
women's “choice.”

Another point to ponder as we try to
forge more radical bona fide coalitions (and
not merely fortify the “pro-choice majority”)
is why “choice” has been so successful.
Unlike most critics of “choice,” I do not dis-

like “choice” because it has proven to be an

ineffective political rhetoric or stance. On
the contrary, it has worked very effectively
and in conjunction with “life” to sustain a
fight between two majority camps. “Choice”
and “life,” although antagonists, have
worked together to sustain a political system

(Continued to page 20)

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 o LOVE AND RAGE © PAGE 3

.Kurdish, meaning something like

By JAN KRAKER

n September 3, 1996, US armed
0 forces launched cruise missiles at tar-

gets in southern Iraq in response to
an invasion by Saddam Hussein of the so-
called “safe haven” for Kurds in northern
Irag. US officials were quick to point out
that “this has nothing to do with the Kurds;
this is between us and Saddam Hussein.”
And indeed this was true, for America’s
involvement in northern Iraq was never
motivated by a concern for the plight of the
Kurdish people, but the desire to*protect
American oil interests in the region. In the
days before the US missile strike on Iraq,
dozens. of Iraqi tanks and artillery, backed
by Kurdish traitors from the Kurdish
Democratic party (KDP) militia group, cap-

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish national liberation group

tured the city of Erbil, formerly the capital
of “free Kurdistan” and the site of its feder-
ated parliament. Even after the Americans
“punished” Hussein for this aggression,
Iraqi-backed Kurds (known as “jash” in
“little
donkeys”) moved on to attack other Kurdish
towns, including the major intellectual cen--
ter of Suleymania, effectively bringing all
of northern Iraq (South Kurdistan) under
Saddam Hussein’s control once again. Iraqi
agents and secret police, known for their
brutal methods of torture and terror, have
once against swarmed into Kurdistan. Tens
of thousands have fled towards Iran and
Turkey where the situation for Kurds is no—
better. =

THE STATUS OF THE KURDS

Kurdistan is the world’s largest stateless
nation. Its 35 million people were divided,
in the aftermath of World War I and the fall
of the Ottoman Empire, between the colo-
nialist-established states of Iraq, Iran, Syria,
and Turkey. In each of these, Kurds have
been subjected to forced assimilation,
intense repression, and in Turkey and Iraq,
outright attempts at genocide. Largely dis-
regarded by the world’s media, the full
tragedy of the Kurdish plight was brought
home to many by the horrible images of
Saddam Hussein's poison gas attack on the
city of Halabja on March 17, 1988, which
killed some 5,000 Kurdish civilians. But this
was neither the first horrid attack by
Saddam Hussein upon the Kurds, nor the
last.

The most brutal wave of repression
against Iraqi Kurds occurred in the after-
math of the Iran-Iraq war. From 1987-89, a
special operation of genocide was bureau-
cratically engineered by the Ba'ath Party
against the Kurds of northern lrag. Known
as the “Anfal” Campaign, it included the
Iraqi military’s burning, bulldozing, and
bombing towns and villages with popula-
tions of as many as 70,000 people.’ Mass
graves unearthed following the creation of
the UN “safe haven” in 1991 revealed the
extent of the campaign’s barbarity. It is

estimated that at least 182,000 Kurds were
murdered during the Anfal Campaign by
the Iraqi forces (Lazier, p. 1). Saddam
Hussein's history of genocidal campaigns
against the Kurds makes the recent collabo-
ration of a Kurdish faction with Saddam
Hussein difficult to understand.

A “SAFE” HAVEN FOR KURDS

A Kurdish uprising in South Kurdistan in
March 1991 succeeded in liberating nearly
all parts of Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan,
including key oil-rich urban centers such as
Kirkuk. But the Allied powers who had
“defeated” Saddam Hussein stood by and
watched as the unscathed Republican Guard
elite forces, backed by tanks and helicopter

gunships, overran the region once again,
killing thousands and forcing more than
two million people to flee for their lives. In
the wake of their great “victory” in the Gulf
War and particularly because the Allies
themselves had encouraged the Kurds and
other anti-Saddam forces to rise in revolt,
the Western powers established a no-fly
zone over some of northern Iraq (excluding
those regions of Kurdistan where most oil is
located) and announced a UN-backed “safe
haven” for the Kurdish people. Like most
UN “safe havens” in recent years, the region
soon turned into a nightmare of suffering.

Despite the defeat of their revolt- against
Hussein, the Kurds of northern-Iraq decided
to make use of their Allied-backed enclave
to establish the first “free” Kurdistan in
recent history. Elections were held in 1992
for a federated Kurdish parliament based in
Erbil, but Kurdish joy soon turned sour as
factional fighting devoured the region. The
1992 elections were declared a tie between
the two major parties at that time, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The KDP has been the major player in
Kurdish politics in Iraq since the Second
World War, and under its leader Mulla
Mustafa Barzani, the Kurds revolted against
Iraq from 1970-75. Unwisely expecting
backing from the CIA, the Kurds were even-
tually defeated. Mustafa Barzani made
peace with Saddam Hussein and died a bro-
ken man. This surrender angered many
Kurds who wished to fight on, and in June
1975, Jalal Talabani split from the KDP
along with several left-wing Kurdish groups
to form the PUK. In 1978, present jash chief
Massoud Barzani, Mustafa’s son, assumed
control of the KDP.

The differences between the PUK and the
KDP mirror schisms within Kurdish society
itself. While the KDP is fiercely conserva-
tive and loyal to old feudal traditions, the
PUK represents many bourgeois urban ele-
ments. Media and KDP claims that the PUK
are “pro-Iranian” are oversimplified. Indeed,
both the PUK and the KDP have at some
point in time embraced Saddam Hussein,
the United States, and even Turkey’s geno-

PAGE. 4° LOVE AND RAGE * MARCH/APRIL 1996

ATA TAN A MUDA

Kurds: Between iraq and a Hard Place

cidal military leaders. Both parties are driv-
en by narrow-minded desires for power and
neither seeks Kurdish independence.

The Kurds of northern Irag were hit hard
by the economic effects of the Gulf War.
The Turkish military launched several major
raids into the region, including a full-scale
invasion in March 1995. Iran also shelled
the region on several occasions. And Iraq,
while postponing overt military action until
this August, repeatedly sent intelligence

agents into Kurdistan to carry out bomb- |

ings and acts of sabotage which greatly
damaged the region’s already weak infra-
structure. The attacks were made worse by a
double embargo: one embargo was placed
on Iraq by the UN, and the Iraqi govern-
ment placed its own internal embargo on

AS a n

Kurdistan. Pery was lipant throughout
the Kurdish enclave, and the only source of
income for many people became smuggling
or the control of tariffs from shipments to
and from Turkey. The desire to control
these economic channels prompted the KDP
and the PUK to go to war in 1994. By this
time, the Kurdish federated parliament had
been all but forgotten. Tribal war replaced
nation-building.

PKK STRONG IN SOUTH KURDISTAN

Absent from most media and policy discus-
sions on the recent developments in north-
ern Iraq is the role the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) will now play in the region.

Although mainly based in Turkish-occupied

Kurdistan, the leftist PKK has established
itself as the third major player in South
Kurdistan over the past few years and it
more than any other party will gain
tremendously from recent events.

The PKK, established by leader Abdullah
Ocalan in 1978, began armed struggle
against the Turkish government on August
15, 1984. Since then, it has achieved
remarkable military success against
Turkey's US-backed military, the largest in
NATO. The PKK's campaign has remained
largely focused on rural and mountainous
regions and has not yet spread to urban
centers. In response to the PKK threat
Turkey has unleashed a massive military
response directed largely at civilians.
Turkey has destroyed more than 3,000

Kurdish villages since 1991. Death squad
murders, imprisonment, and torture are
commonplace.

The PKK, like most Kurdish parties, took
advantage of the power vacuum in northern
Iraq after the Gulf War and established
dozens of camps and training facilities in
the region. Repeated Turkish attempts to
dislodge PKK forces in South Kurdistan
have all failed. For the past few years, the

_PKK has been organizing among the civil-

ian population of South Kurdistan, much to
the dislike of both the KDP and the PUK.
Socialist in its ideology, the PKK, for exam-
ple, advocates the full equality of men and .
women. Unlike the reactionary KDP and the
PUK, women swell the ranks of the PKK's
guerrilla army, the People’s Liberation
Army of Kurdistan (ARGK). The PKK, unlike
the KDP and PUK, seeks the liberation of
all of Kurdistan, and not only from foreign
and colonialist occupation, but also from
the grip of traditional Kurdish feudalism
and tribalism. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan
recently criticized Jalan Talabani’s PUK for
cooperating with fundamentalist Iran, a
country which is no friend to the Kurds,
and then appealing in vain to the imperial-
ist West. But the PKK’s biggest enemy in
recent times has been the traitorous KDP.
Despite PKK’s efforts to create a Kurdistan
National Congress together with the PUK
and KDP, attempts at national unity have
been consistently derailed by the short-term
interests of these more reactionary Kurdish `
elements.

Another obstacle to unity is Western
Opposition to any role by the PKK in
Kurdish affairs. The recent PUK/KDP war
not only thwarted the Kurdish people's
aspirations for unity and independence, it
also represented a major failure for imperi-
alist foreign~policy. The US State
Department has organized several
PUK/KDP summits in am: effort to organize
a front to stop the rise of the PRK. The CIA

bent Rien of doll: irs tO prop up the
«DP art f b Kurdistan,
not sie to hold Hussein in check BU

to work against the PKK. On both ume

the US now looks foolish. The KDP fought
side-by-side with-Hussein's=troops in oust-

‘ing the PUK. With the PUK now largely

gone from the area and the KDP.exposed
as traitors, the PKK isnon aa O become
the major Kurdish force in South
Kurdistan.

KDP treason is nothing new in Kurdistan,
and the PKK, despite its attempts at nation-
al unity, is well aware of this. The KDP will
take money from anyone, even from
Turkey, whose genocidal campaign against
Turkish Kurds rivals Hussein’s in its barbar-
ity. The KDP has repeatedly cut deals with
the Turkish government and has worked
with the Turkish military against the PKK
on several occasions. ;

On August 15, 1995, the ARGK, the
PKK’s armed wing launched a “second
August 15th offensive” against the KDP in
South Kurdistan. This followed a deal by US
and Turkish officials and the KDP which
was arranged in Dublin, Ireland and
designed to root out PKK support in the
region. Following weeks of fighting, during
which the KDP suffered heavy losses and
the PKK firmly established itself as the third
major force in South Kurdistan, a truce in
the interest of national unity was
announced in December. At the time of this
PKK offensive, many Kurds and their sup-
porters condemned the PKK, saying they
were guilty of the same in-fighting tenden-
cies as the KDP and the PUK. The PKK
claimed the move was necessary to halt the
KDP’s collaboration with Turkey. History
has proved Abdullah Ocalan correct in this
analysis, for not only have the KDP allied

(Continued to page 19)

>

=

Blood Flows Again in Palestine
Will it be in Vain?

By THE ORGANIZATION FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION
-CHALLENGE AND SABAR MAGAZINES

he bloody events of the last few days
have introduced a new factor into the

political scene. The Palestinian
demonstrations are a response to long-felt
abuse, humiliation, frustration—and

hunger. The guns which Arafat had pointed
against his own people have been aimed
instead at Israeli soldiers. After the opening
of the infamous tunnel near the Via
Dolorosa (the latest assertion of unilateral
Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem), it was

Palestinian youth pelts Israeli-soldiers in Ramallah

Arafat himself who called for demonstra-
tions. He could have had little idea how
violent they would become. Once the shoot-
ing started, he had no choice but to support
the demonstrators, hoping to use the popu-
lar outrage, as well as Netanyahu’s isola-
tion, in order to make political gains and
bolster his faltering prestige.

THE LAST STRAW

If Peres were in power today, he would no
doubt have negotiated with Arafat, giving
him some harmless trifle in exchange
for the opening of the tunnel. (Before
losing power he had already worked
out a deal whereby Arafat would
give up the claim to Jerusalem in
exchange for a village to the east
called Abu Dis, which could be
renamed El Kuds ["The Holy,” the
Arabic name for Jerusalem] and
transformed into a Palestinian capi-
tal.) But Netanyahu blundered along.
He got Arafat to shut down three
official Palestinian offices in
Jerusalem, and then, instead of giv-
ing something in return, continued

destroyed Arab houses, and began
taking over Arab land for ultraortho-
dox Jewish neighborhoods. The mid-
night opening of-the tunnel was thus
23 the straw that broke the camel's
back. If Arafat had let it pass, he

Victim to the Chrome, Another Souljah Gone

My Critique onthe Existence of Tupac Amaru Shakur

| nother potentialed souljah have suc-
el ceeded in completing his/her own

A prophecy. A “street poet” which
Amerikkka and probably most of the plan-
et, have witnessed either on film, in the
media, but mostly “on wax.”

Brotha “Tupac Amaru Shakur” was/is the
offspring of resisters. From his Queen-
Mother and Father on back to the countless
faces of his Afrikan ancestors.

Many utter that his life was wasted. I
beg to differ. He was born to complete a
circle. A circle of children born into a
social structure—that consistently breeds
the “Do or Die” mentality. A circle of
despair that festers no matter how many
KKKolonized dollars that a New Afrikan
seed might obtain. The contradictions are
revealed “broadly” in “spurts.” For instance
—pig brutality was clocked in the oppressed
“mental cam-corder” many years before
there was a conception of a “Rodney King”
let alone a video tape of his personal
lynching. Brotha Tupac’s passing over isn’t
any different. The biological/germ warfare
weapon called A.I.D.S. was seen in the New
Afrikan community years before Brotha
“Eazy E” (may he R.I.P.) was known to have
been a victim of it. So on and so forth.

How many “spurts” of the contradictions:
_ in a “broad” sense is it going to take New

Afrikans and other oppressed seeds in
Amerikkka and abroad to intensify in steal-
ing our minds back? There’s no more room
for the living (dying) in denial that so
many of us are falling prey to, no matter
how much we try to make our reality sound
ad if it’s “just a movie” or “just something
on wax” we're “just” fooling ourselves.
Brotha Tupac was one of the few poten-
tialed peoples souljahs who was able to
broadly expose the “water and oil” mentality
and emotions that comes along with
dwelling in a KKKolonialized, racist, sexist
society. From his lyrics in “Brenda” to “Thug
Life” to “Shed So Many Tears” to “Hit "em
Up” to “Dear Momma” to “How Long Will
You Mourn Me” to “Words of Wisdom.” His
lethal combination that we call the “love
and hate” (rage) mentality that a backwards
plantational society breeds in its dwellers.
Even though our existence in such a society
is often ruthless we can still shout some love
_and attempt to “keep our heads up.”
Prophecy is not as “spooky” as we’ve
often been mis-educated to accept by “fire

By Brotha Firaun Umoja

a Ri,

as simple as studying the social structure
which we presently exist in and comparing
its present with its past. Then it’s pretty easy
to “foresee” or have a notion on. what
tomorrow(s) will bring if conditions better or
worsen. Brotha Tupac was one of the many
young minds who are able to do this. He
should be commended for that, with what
ever human contradictions that the seed
might have pos-
sessed. His biggest
contribution in my
(and others) eyes
was the fact that
his street (or kolo-
nized) poetry
broadly exposed
the love and rage
which festers inside
of the oppressed to
steal our minds
back. For many of
us Can foresee
many many more
potentialed orga-
nized “revo's”
falling victim to the chrome in our near
future the longer that we cease in moving to
liberate our minds.

So, in closing; Brotha Tupac Amaru
Shakur's existence on this plane definitely
was not a waste. Even though some of us
don't doubt that had he been surrounded or
consistently amongst some P.R.T.'s (Poor
Righteous Teachers) whose “vibe” he could
thoroughly feel he'd been able to make
even more of a difference in the New
Afrikan National/International struggle. I
pour out a little fruit juice for the existence
of Brotha Tupac Amaru Shakur. Rest In
Peace with the Universe Little Souljah.
Peace Unto You who Struggle for
Change. X

In Struggle
Brotha Fi’raun Umoja
(captive in the Indiana State Tombs)

“They got money for wars, but can’t
feed the poor...”

From “Keep Your Head Up”
by Tupac Amaru Shakur (R.1.P.)

to delay the redeployment in Hebron, -

Tupac with his mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur

would have lost the little credibility he |
has left among his people.

Many compare the recent violence
with the Intifada. Not so. The intifada
set as its goal the establishment of an
independent state in the West Bank
and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its
capital. It expressed a broad consen-
sus among Palestinians both at home f~
and in exile. Arafat’s goal is some- |
thing else entirely: to “get back on
the track” of the Oslo accords, which
do not lead to Palestinian sovereign-
ty, and which do nothing to bring
back the refugees, dismantle the
Jewish settlements, or establish the f
Palestinian right to East Jerusalem.

Will the present violence help bring
a better solution? No. As long as the Oslo
concept prevails, Israel will have the upper
hand. It is the essence of Oslo to take
advantage of Palestinian weakness after the
fall of the Soviet Union. Having taken his
historic decision, Arafat has no way back.
He will have to calm the rebellion, while
trying to get as much as he can from
Netanyahu in exchange. Because he cannot
afford to defy the US-Israel alliance, he will
have to continue on the path of surrender.
The two local “partners” know both their
goals and their limits: Arafat cannot elimi-
nate the Israeli occupation, and Israel will
not try to get rid of Arafat. For Israel does
not want to send its soldiers back into Gaza
or Nablus. The victims of these last days

New Airikan Prisoners Speak Out on Tupac

Palestinian Authority officer under portrait of his boss

have courageously expressed their people’s
feelings of pain and humiliation, but it is to
be: feared that their blood will have been
spilled in vain—for Arafat's limited use.
Meanwhile the left-wing opposition in
Israel continues to call for a return to the
Oslo process. That would be a return to lim-
ited autonomy, as enforced by Arafat's
corrupt regime. It would be a return to the
acceptance of closure. It would be a return

` to the plunder. of Arab lands in Jerusalem

for the sake of expanding Israeli settle-
ments. It would be a return to the same
impossible equation which underlies the
present upheaval. x

ninas

and engaged in thoughts of de New

Afrikan Independence Movement when
news of Tupac's death hit de air waves. It
hit me real hard, and for awhile I couldn’t
believe it, but at de same time, I could pro-
foundly overstand.

Here is a New Afrikan lyrical genius (in
my opinion!), born thru de womb of a Blak
Pantha. Died such a tragic death. First five
shots, now four.
Mathematically
speaking, nine, de
number of com-
pletion.

Tho Tupac was
not Politically
conscious and
often expressed
lyrics that were
both dehumaniz-
ing and degrading
of Afrikan

socially aware,
which vividly
reflects in many
of de songs he’s made such as, “Brenda’s
Got a Baby,” “Keep Your Head Up,” and
“Dear Momma,” which are amongst my
favorites. Everything de Brotha pumped
had some form of message in it; some mes-
sages even appear prophetic. His “reality
rap” is definitely something that many of
us can identify with and feel, mainly b’cuz
for a lot of us it was an everyday thing in
de concrete “so-called” ghetto.

l listen to de radio and observed many of
de dialogues taking place in de segregated
tomb that KKKonfined me, and I was hurt
by a lot of de negativism coming from my
Peepoe—Afrikans, children of de sun, were
responding with such madness. But I wasn’t
at all surprized. j

One voice came over de radio, “live by
de sword, die by de sword. I don’t like how
he disrespected Blak Wymyn noway,”
anotha voice came thru de tombs, “that’s
what he gets for faken at it. He wasn’t liv-
ing none of that shit noway.” Tho Our
Peepoe have a legitimate argument about
certain lyrics he use., we still shouldn't be
so quick in verbally assassinating Afrikas
son. For there is little difference in de gun
and de tongue—Death and Destruction is
contained in them both! We fail to realize

Peepoe, he was

By Mangwiro Sadiki

and brimstone” wolves in holy clothing. It’s "lay in a KKKage listening to de radio both” de shooters and Tupac are

victims...victims of Amerikkkanizm.

De KKKolonialist-Imperialist empire
seized diz opportunity to mobilize its pro-
paganda networks to further belittle de
Blak Male/Man and exploit de vile effects
of poverty, lost direction, self-hatred, and
low-self esteem that horrifically plagues de
New Afrikan community. Tupac was sud-
denly shown in de newspapers, news, tell-
lie-vision, etc. as de representation of every
New Afrikan man in diz alien occupied ter-
ritory/land...KKKolonialism in its worst
form: enslaving de minds of de masses to
negative, destructive views of de New
Afrikan Male/Man, thereby making him an
easier target for subjugation and assassina-
tion. His legitimacy in de eyes of de
Peepoe...destroyed.

Tho Tupac Shakur’s death is said to have
been attributed te members of de “Crips,”
de politically conscious amongst us
attribute de root cause to de primary con-
tradiction confronting us— KKKolonial-
ism(ist): “De mind behind de gun.” We
must not allow Amerikkka to utilize diz
tragity to further push her “so-called” justi-
fy de imprisonment of Our Males/Men. Nor
should we allow diz monster to further
KKKriminalize our New Afrikan Nation and
deceive de world into believing that we are
just a bunch of backwards savages that are
becoming extinct by our own hands. Only
a fool would deny that Blak on Blak vio-
lence exist, but we must also overstand that
when one controls a persons thinking, you
do not have to worry about their actions.
It's about taking our minds back. Tupac is
but one of de thousands of Afrikan Peepoe
whose blood has returned to be womb of de
earth. Now we must make those who are
truly responsible pay. De Crips aren't de
problem, de Bloods aren't de problem. It's
not de Gansta Disciples or de Vice Lords. It

is a wicked ass KKKolonialist-Imperialist

government that will not rest until de only
nation alive is de parasites with white skin.
Tupac said it quite clear, “we ain't meant to

`“ survive, cuz it’s a set up...” but we will sur-

vive. And we will win! Xx
R.I.P. Tupac Shakur
Rebuild! Rebuild! Rebuild!

Mangwiro Sadiki, Michigan City, IN
N.A.I.M. Kkkaptive

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE e PAGE 5

Web”

ee ee ee E T T E E E E S E S E

aero

AA

AA AAA

ARA Everywhere

Anti-Racist ACTION Reports

The ARA Network now boasts over two
dozen chapters in North America! The fol-
lowing updates and addresses provide a
sampling of ARA activities.

HOUSTON

In the three or so months since ARA
Houston formed, the group grew from 7
members to an excess of 130 members on
its mailing list alone. They've gotten
“incredible support from the community
right off the bat,” and have hit the ground
running. They are in the process of 1)
Getting ARA extension chapters started in
local High Schools. Four new High Schools
are already getting involved. 2) Figuring
out how to reach and teach younger, ele-
mentary-age kids about the dangers and
stupidity of prejudice before prejudice gets
to them. first. 3) Doing surveillance on the
Nazi scene. 4) Protesting and organizing
against fascist music. in their community.
They have already protested at a local
music store. 4) Making information readily
available to the public about ARA, about
how to, spot, Nazis and+also-aboutothe fact
that, most, skinheads aren't racist,so one

` should ¡not judge a skin hy: her cover! 5)

Newsletters!

MINNEAPOLIS

The summer's. been hectic! There was a gay
bashing mid-summer in the neighborhood
where our meetings were held (and where
some, of our core, members live and hang
out). ‘The culprits were two “pro-American”
skinheads who haye been semi- antagonistic
to ARA. We, initiated and helped organize
an upbeat march through the neighbor-
hood, beginning with a qucer kiss-in in
front of the bashers’ house! ARA worked in
coalition with feminist and. queer. groups
and individuals. from those communities
and, the neighborheeds Over, 200 people

came out to show that. gay,bashing. and si

homophobia of any kind would not be tol-
crated andswould:be-confronted in the
streets and in.every scene.

Ten of us: made the trip.to Chicago to
help represent ARA at the protest against
the Democratic National. Convention and to
make an. appearance: at the Active

Athens ARA
PO Box 298
Athens, OH 45701

Baltimore,

c/o A-Zone
1573 N. Milwauk #
Chicago,

PO Box 321211
Detroit, MI 48232

Pickering
LtV 6P7 CAN

Resistance counter convention. We gave a
Copwateh workshop that was well received
and acted as Copwatch at the Not on the
Guest List demonstration, helping to
enhance the anti-cop flavor of that 2,000
person march. We formed a line with folks
from ARA Flint, ARA Lansing, #10 collec-
tive from Vermont, and Love and Rage-New
York between cops and the people doing
civil disobedience. We participated in clinic
defense and physically confronted violent
anti-choicers. We also attended a demo
held to counter an anti-choice meeting.
Three ARA members are currently facing
misdemeanor destruction of property
charges for anti-police helicopter graffiti
that has mysteriously appeared around the
city. The police in Minneapolis have taken

another step toward a police state. State
troopers -have-teemed up with police adding
bodies and two helicopters to the city cops’
assets. The helicopters fly and shine their

searchlights over areas,of the city that have Went wel

already been targeted by a program called
Operation Safe, Streets. This program lets
police-stop, search and detain people in
poor, people of color neighborhoods simply
for looking “suspicious,” and instructs
police to-use the law to the full extent for
crimes like jay walking, in order to ID

“potential criminals.” ARA plans to take
more action against these and other fucked-
up police measures.

ARA flyered a show that headlined Type
O-Negative, a metal band with racist lyrics
in downtown Minneapolis warning metal
kids of Nazis infiltrating their scene. The
“sieg-heiling” fools who were spouting
racist shit and calling ARA girls “race trai-
tors” and “bitches” before the show had a
meeting of the minds with some skate
boards after the show as they were being
chased around downtown by an angry
mob. Their white pride got taken down a
notch when they were called out as racists,
coincidentally at the same time kids were
leaving an arena-sized hip hop show
across the street. A

Thanks to Mac
in Columbus we
got tables at the
Rage Against the
Machine and
Smokin Grooves
(Fugees, Tribe
Calied Quest,
Spearhead and
Cypress Hill)
shows. We dis-
tributed tons of
info, met a lot of
cool kids, tripled
our mailing list,
and sold a: gang
of our styley t-
shirts. Members
of Spearhead and
Rage Against the
Machine are
among those now
sporting them.

We “held an

open forum, discussing the history

of the Black Panthers to MCRO#
our meetings to. a new location (a neighbor-

hood currently OL foes ani

Copwatch here too.

An ARA Minneapolis member and an
Anarchist Black Cross-Baltimore member
who has been kicking it with us for the past
month are facing charges of obstruction of
po-po procedure with force.

Watch for the next issue of our street

Sof time before KE gets oile T a

journal, Fighting Words!

PHILADELPHIA

Pumped-up after a recent a successful
action in Guglersville (see article this page),
over a dozen people attended the first meet-
ing of Philadelphia ARA on September 22.
The chapter seemed long in coming; it’s
been brewing since Jim McNamara of
Columbus ARA spoke in Philly six months
ago. A sense of urgency kicked activists in
the ass, helped them overcome past differ-
ences and come together to build a chapter.
The group already has a full plate, a P.O.
Box, a phone number (see contact list) and
a second meeting on the 29th. They plan to
begin confronting white supremacy by
responding to incidents of harassment by
white supremacists at a local club, Stalag
13, and on South Street, a commercial strip
and popular kids’ hang-out near the
Delaware river. So far this brand newbie
chapter is planning a night out on South
Street, a trip to Washington, D.C. for the
October 12 march for immigrants and the
poor, support for outlying rural
Pennsylvania anti-racist organizing.

ATLANTA:

Nazi presence in Atlanta has grown from a
straggling handful to a gang. of 30-plus.
The racists shave not staged any public
“legal”-type actions or rallies. Instead
they’ve been busy engaging in- terroristic
activities such as confrontations at clubs
and attacks at anti-racists’ homes. And so
unfortunately, anti-Nazi activity has
degenerated into a tit-for-tat exchange.
While Atlanta anti-racists have not yet
gotten a group together to have a more
organized and political opposition, they
have managed to sa up an emergen

e e ye terror in

an ad Mer T fully it’s

In the meantime, anti-racists in Atlanta
have been handing out ARA News at
shows, collecting names for the. JARAG
Network mailing list, and handing “out
anti-racist gear to students@at outlying
high schools so they can have a presence
and face up to racist classmates. +*

By Dan, ARA BALTIMORE

n August 2, Anti-Racist Activists
Os Baltimore, Colúmbus and
Philadelphia converged on Goug-
lersville, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to

Edmonton ARA
#29, 10024-82 Avenue

Niagara ARA
-111 4t Ave, Box 103
Ridley Square
St. Catherines, ON
L25 3P5 CANADA

-PAGE 6 e LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

keep Nazis out of a local show. The pro-
moter of the show had been receiving death
threats froma group of Nazis in the area
and failed to receive any form of protection
after puine the police. ARA went there

Orlando ARA
PO Box 720418
Orlando, FL 32872

Pennsylvania ARA
PO Box 407
Couders Port, PA 16915
814-274-2228

Philadelphia ARA
PO Box 31831
iladelphipa, PA 19104
215:569-2477 48

San Jose ARA
1658 E. Capital Expressway
Suite #526
San Jose, CA 95121

Toronto ARA
PO Box 664, Stn. C
to,O

Tulsa, OK 74101

Get in touch...
Get involved!

with a clear purpose: to keep the Nazis
from getting into the show.

The situation was very tense for most of
the night as we waited for the boneheads
to show up. When a group of eight or nine
skinheads made their way to the door from
an adjacent parking lot things started to
get a little blurry. From our perspective
they didn't look friendly but it was unclear
whether or not they were Nazis. This
standoff went on for some time until one
of the skinheads tried to get into the hall.
He was explicitly asked whether or not he
was racist. His answer was a very resound-
ing yes! At that point he was refused entry
and an hour-long stand-off between ARA
and the Nazis followed. The stand-off
ended when the manager of the hall told
the Nazis to leave because he didn’t want
any trouble.

FENCE SITTERS EXPOSED

For the most part the Nazis were kept out
of the show and violence was completely
avoided. Also the incident did expose many
people in the scene as Nazis and revealed
the vacillating nature of the scene’s atti-
tudes towards Nazis. The number of fence-
sitters who were putting punk rock above
keeping the Nazis out was astounding. On
the other hand the dialogue that was
opened up was very encouraging. It seemed
there was a core group of people who
wanted to keep their scene Nazi-free and
who were dedicated to doing anti-racist
work in their area. We have received
numerous letters from individuals in east-
ern Pennsylvania who want to start ARA
chapters. The positive movement-building
aspects of this action are a case in point:
standing up against Nazis is a crucial step
in anti-racist organizing. *

|

_-AtBoesi't Stop at Six...

Support the indiana 6!

By SHAKA SHAKUR

n 5-27-96, Memorial Day, the top
O half of D-Cell House (D-CH), approx=

imately 150 prisoners of all national-
ities, ate their afternoon meal in complete
silence to protest the planned premeditated
murder of an innocent man, Ziyon
Yisrayah (s/n Tommie Smith), that was ini-
tially scheduled for
June 14, 1996.

The following
day i was kid-
napped out of D-
CH and brothers

of Us were placed
in the hole under
investigation for
“encouraging oth-
ers to demonstrate.”
All of Our personal
property was seized and taken to the investi-
gators office where all Our personal letters,
papers, etc. were read, copied, etc. and the
state thus began its conspiracy to arrest over
15 New Afrikan (Black) men and charge 10
of them on trumped up charges of conspira-
cy to disrupt the scheduled murder/execu-
tion of Ziyon.

On 6-6-96 in the wee hours of the morn-
ing 10 New Afrikan prisoners from all over
this maximum security prison were
snatched out of their beds by Nazi style
D.0.C. SWAT teams, made to wait 4 hours,
some handcuffed behind their backs, then
stripped searched, placed in bright red
jumpsuits and draped in chains. As We
were being placed into single file under the

. threat of kkkops in black fatigues, combat

boots, with UZI machine guns, Glock
9mms, stun guns and pepper spray mace,
We were told We were being moved to the
maximum control complex (supermax) in
order to “keep the peace.”

one ‘with the six men aut Giese
sion by the Indiana D.O.C. in con-
nection with the state's execution /
murder of Ziyon Yisrayah—more are under
investigation, charged and found not guilty
yet still facing disciplinary action, or
remaining locked down. While the six men

_received the initial blows from the state it is

important that we support all of the men
-implicated in this frame-up.

If you're still asking yourself why you
should support any of these men consider
this: all of them have histories within the
Indiana prison system, histories of standing
up for human dignity, histories of fighting
for the basic human rights that should be
given to all but are routinely denied to
those locked up in america's prisons. They
have histories of helping to transform oth-
ers from criminal lifestyles to progressive
ones. They are men who have committed
such criminal acts behind the bars as
studying to better themselves, struggling to

MET]

As We were made to march single file
through the administration building at the
height of roll call the D.O.€. propaganda
campaign was set in motion and the
attempt to kkkriminalize and dehumanize
Us had begun. As 10 Afrikan men were
marched in chains single file, 6 of Us with
lengthy dreadlocks, We ran into the fearful

CK CROSS

After reaching Our destination We expe-
rienced no better treatment then what Our
ancestors received upon their arrival to
amerika. Instead of racists with whips, it
was racist kkkops in fatigues with foot long
clubs with steel tips itching to crush Our
skulls. Instead of an auction block, it was
an empty cell stripped of its furniture

ERA (Left 0) aay Idrix Malik, oe etna ion Shakur,
Sekou B. Majekodunmi, Akono G. Olatunji, Anane Baye (ener

and hateful stares and gawking by secre-
taries, rows of more kkkops, counselors, etc.
only to step outside into a full military
operation of K-9s, visitors and employees
cordoned off to the sidewalks by UZI and
Glock carrying kkkops. As traffic was
blocked while We were thrown into two
vans under the watchful eyes of the over-
seer/warden,
the message
to be con-
veyed was
that these 10
shackled and
chained Black y
men are dangerous animals. We must pro-
tect you from these kind of people. The
D.O.C. played upon and manipulated the
racist fears of people and fed into the racist
images that every major news broadcast
projects of Afrikan people in society. Black
men are dangerous and it must take Us
white men to control them!

See

find ways to heal aña eG their lives

in an atmosphere that does its best to try
and kill their spirit and will. They are fac-
ing this repression for these reasons—not
because of any conspiracy to riot. The con-
spiracy is amongst those in the I.D.0.C.

Lorenzo L. Stone-Bey #10006: transferred
to Indiana Reformatory on D/S status after
being found not guilty.

P.O. Box 30, Pendleton, IN 46064

Herman Averhart #900086: transferred to
Indiana Reformatory on D/S status after
being found not guilty.

P.O. Box 30, Pendleton, IN 46064
Mangwiro Sadiki (s/n James Malone)
#913752: Received one year segregation
sentence after initial Indiana 10 investiga-
tion. Also lost 90 days good time and was
dropped in time class, ane postponing
his release.

Malik Umoja “Fi’raun”: Received a one
year segregation sentence after initial

Political Repression in
Indiana Knows No Bounds! can tei

where We were forced to spread Our but-
tocks, lift and pull out Our bottom €t top
lips, stick Our tongues out, lift Our scro-

tums and raise Our arms and show the bot-.

toms of Our feet. Those with dreadlocks
told to fold and bend them as you were
thrown into a shower and given cups of
disinfectant and told to make sure you put
some in
your hair.
Of course
any racist

you that
dreadlocks
are nasty, dirty and nave bugs in them!
Refuse any of these commands and you risk
being attacked by 5 kkkops dressed in
hockey gear with bullet proof vests and
clubs.

Why were We all being subjected to
this? Because We dared speak out against
the premeditated murder of an innocent

Political Repression in
Indiana Knows No Bounds

man. Because We as New Afrikan men
dared reclaim Our humanity and transform
Our kkkriminal mentality and reject the
kkkriminal attempts by this sick system and
society to have Us mentally deranged.
morally depraved and socially backwards.

Do prisoners have a right to express out-
rage at a decision made by the state to kill
an innocent man?
Do We as human
beings suppose to be
denied of all human
emotion and feelings
because We are pris-
oners? Do We not
have the right to be
critical of the state
when it plans to take
one of Us into a cold
sterile room, strap Us
to a gurney and stab
Us all over Our bod-
ies with needles so
they can inject Us with their poison cock-
tail? That is how they did Ziyon Yisrayah
on 7-18-96 as they stood cold and heartless
behind curtains with clip boards in hand
taking notes of every twitch and last gasp
of breath. Genocidal murder made into an
art form!

On 6-18-96 the state of Indiana
informed the 10 of Us that We have no
right to speak and they did so by charging
all 10 of Us with “attempts to riot” and
“threatening.” Seeing that it was insuffi-
cient to keep Us from speaking out to
expose the criminal conspiracy of the state
and its agency, the D.O.C., they dropped
those charges and moved to cover up their
attempts to frame Us and conceal the polit-
ical nature of the repression. Returning two
weeks later they charge Us with
“Conspiracy to Riot” and “Threatening.”
Moving to criminalize Us by labeling Us as

(Continued to page 21)

CEEE SL a EAN AIN TAS

investigation for possessing a supposed
mask.
Bobby Peck #865349: Received one year

session of a supposed weapon after being
cleared of conspiracy to riot and threaten-
ing charges.

Kuumba (s/n Robert Carrington) #875749:
Being transfered to Wabash Correctional
Institution after being found not guilty.

What you can do:

Call, write and fax Acting Department of Corrections
Commissioner Ed Cohen. Demand that the charges
against the six prisoners be dropped and that no fur-
ther disciplinary action be taken against them.

Commissioner Ed Cohen
E 334 Indiana Govt. Ctr. S.
302 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-232-5715
FAX: 317-232-6798

Contact members of the Indiana Congressional
Black Caucus and urge them to call for an investiga-

tion into the racial nature of the charges against
these prisoners and the executions of Ziyon
Yisrayah and Ajamu Nassor.

"disciplinary segregation“sentence for poss dl td ii —Á

BLACK LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS
c/o Indiana House of Representatives
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Write to the charged prisoners to show
your support and offer what help you can:

Kopano Muhammad (s/n Vincent Hatchett) #25800
Shaka Shakur #28443
Sekou B, Majekodunmi (s/n Michael Ford) #855831
Akono G. Olatunji (s/n David Bellemy) #862113
Idrix Malik (s/n Kevin Holifield) #22275
Anane Baye Camara (s/n Armen Sylvester) #16091

They have all been shipped to various control units
in Indiana. Call the 1.D.O.C. to find their location:
(317) 232-5715

For More Information Contact:
Brew City Anti-Authoritarian Collective
P.O. Box 93312
Milwaukee, WI 53203
blast@csd.uwm.edu

Prison Notes

FIRE IN THE SKY

Raze the Walls!, an anarchist prisoner sup-
port project based in Seattle, has published
a new journal, Fire in the Sky. It consists of
“articles exposing the stupidity of caging,
writings by prisoners, listings of resources
for prisoners, and articles on anarchism.”
This is the first issue, and will only contin-
ue if there’s clear support for doing so. This
first issue also includes a great resource
guide for prisoners. Order your copy from
Raze the Walls, PO Box 22774, Seattle, WA
98122-0774.

OVER 1.6 MILLION IN US PRISONS

The number of men and women in the
nation’s prisons and jails climbed to nearly
1.6 million last year. By the end of 1995, 1
out of every 167 Americans was in prison
or jail, compared to 1 out of every 320 a
decade earlier, according to the Justice
Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
As of Dec. 31 there were 1,078,357 men
and women in federal and state prisons,
which usually house sentenced prisoners

serving more than one year. That was an
increase of 86,745 over the previous year,
or 8.7%, slightly above the average annual
growth rate during the last five years. As of
June 30, 1995, there were 507,044 men and
women in local jails, which mostly hold
people serving less than 1-year sentences.
That was an increase of 20,570 or 4.2%.

The total number of inmates in custody
has more than doubled since 1985, up
113%. The rate of incarceration has grown
from 313 prisoners per 100,000 US resi-
dents in 1985 to 600 prisoners per 100,000
in 1995.

ABC IN AUSTRALIA

ABC Melbourne is not a new group, but
was inactive for a while. Now it is reorga-
nized and is going stronger and stronger.
ABC Brisbane formed in the last year too
and is active. ABC Melbourne and ABC
Brisbane, with other anarchists, have orga-
nized support for Mumia Abu-Jamal, sup-
port for the Greek anarchist prisoners, an
ABC Weekend in March, solidarity for the
Turkish and Kurdish prisoners on hunger-
strike, and more. ABC Melbourne publishes

(Continued to page 20)

Mumia Abu-Jamal Update

By ALEXIS Buss AND JAMILA LEVI

n October 1, 1996, Judge Sabo again
O clearly demonstrated how far the

Philadelphia courts will go to stand
in the way of a new and fair trial for
Mumia Abu-Jamal. The morning began
with Mumia's defense attorneys trying to
issue a subpoena to the District Attorney's
office for the entire Jamal case file. Of par-
ticular importance are the records pertain-
ing to police coercion of witnesses to the
shooting of Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.
This motion was denied after Judge Sabo
characteristically sided with the prosecution
to strictly limit testimony to issues -sur-
rounding a newly found addition to
Mumia’s PCRA (Post Conviction Relief
Application) case, Veronica Jones.

Veronica Jones was working as a prosti-
tute at the time and witnessed the incident
where Mumia was shot and Officer Faulkner
was killed. She testified that on December
15, 1981 she was questioned by police at
her mother’s home and told them she saw
two men run away from the scene of the
shooting. In January 1982, the cops

brought her into the Sixth District Precinct
and made her an offer: work the streets
with impunity in exchange for testimony
identifying Mumia as the shooter. Five
months later, Jones was again in custody
for felony charges. She was again told that
she would be relieved of charges if she
named Mumia as the shooter. This time, it
was harder to refuse. As she testified in
court, “Ten years away from my kids—my
kids was all I was thinking of.” At the time,
Jones was 21 years old with three young
daughters. A few days later, she was
brought into court, thinking that she was
going to be facing her own charges.
Instead, it was the courtroom of Judge
Sabo—she was brought into Mumia's trial.
Jones’ denied her original statement that

the two men fled the scene, implicitly

implicating Mumia.

Veronica Jones had been sought by
Mumia's defense for years and was finally
found in April 1996. The D.A. relentlessly
insisted that Jones” whereabouts had been

known by the defense all along, and that

(Continued to page 21)

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 7

e vi

By RACHEL RINALDO

recent split in the Khmer Rouge (KR)
is one of the most dramatic develop-

ments in current Cambodian politics.
A large section of the KR, led by leng Sary,
the Foreign Minister during the Pol Pot
regime, has split off from the core group,

headed by Ta Mok (General Chief of Staff

of the National Army of Democratic
Kampuchea, who oversaw the purges and
under Pol Pot) and Son Sen (Defense
Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, who

may have been responsible forthe Tuol
Sleng torture center) g several

weeks of quarreling within the shaky coali- `

tion government, Prince Sihanouk par-
doned Sary and gave him full-amnesty on
September 14, with the support of two
thirds of the parliament. The government
and military officiate are now meeting with

The magnitude of the split i issenormous.
The breakaway faction includes up to-4,000
troops out of an estimated 7-10,000 total
for the KR fighting forces, and possibly
over 20,000 civilians in northwest
Cambodia neat the Thai border. The 4,000

‘forces include eight out of the KR’s 22 divi-

sions, two of them its strongest. Two more
divisions, are expected to begin negotiations
soon, bringing the total up to 10, or nearly
half of the KR. This effectively isolates the
rest of the KR in a thin strip of territory
along the Thai border and a few scattered
units in other areas of the country. The
northwest region is extremely important
because of its tremendous gem and timber
resources, which have sustained the KR
financially since they retreated and
regrouped there after the Vietnamese
invaded in 1978. The breakaway group has
now started a political party under the
leadership of Sary and may participate in
the upcoming 1998 elections. The
Cambodian public remains divided over the
pardon and on the issue of whether to seek
retribution for the 1976-1979 mass killings.

Cambodian politics, though,-is murky.
The background of the split and of the
characters involved points to a far less
savory interpretation of events than the
straightforward news story implies. The
internal split came to light August 7, when
clandestine KR radio broadcast accusations
of treason against Sary. The next day, co-
prime minister Hun Sen (of the Cambodian
People’s Party or CPP, the Communist party
once backed by Vietnam) declared that the
breakaway faction had defected to the gov-
ernment, and claimed credit for it. This
sparked internal feuding between Hun Sen
and his co-prime minister Prince Norodom
Ranariddh (Funcinpec Party—royalists), son
of King Sihanouk.

PATTERN OF DISSENSION

The feuding continued the pattern of dissen-
sion that has plagued the coalition govern-
ment since its election in 1993, following
the departure of Vietnamese troops (in
1989) and the UN peacekeeping initiative
(UNTAC). Superficially, Hun Sen, himself a
KR defector, was pro-pardon, and the Prince
and the King vehemently against. Actually
though, the dispute was more about Hun

_ played in the Khmer Rouge’s regime, and

Sen’s claiming credit for provoking the split.
The Phnom Penh Post, reported that sources
claimed the Funcinpec party had initiated
negotiations with elements of the KR. There
were suspicions, however (denied by
Funcinpec), that Funcinpec was attempting
to create an alliance to present a unified
[front in the face of the CPP and seize con-
trol over the northwest. Though it seems
far-fetched in light of King Sihanouk's past,
an alliance would not be all that surprising.
The Post further reported that Hun Sen sus-
pected an alliance, but also did not want
Funcinpec to be able to take credit for pos-
sible mass defections, so he instructed the
CPP military to make contact with the KR.
This happened at the same time as the
apparent KR internal split between Sary’s
and Ta Mok's wings.

It is still not clear what role leng Sary

Battambang
Pailin
“Samleu?

o
: Pursat

CAMBODIA

Phnom Penh

what his ~
break with
them means

for Cambodia. 4
Many in 3 oo 3

Cambodia, and A
outside, are reluctant to
pin him with the charges
of genocide or murder

because no direct evidence links him to it
beyond his position in the government.
Born in 1928 in what is now lower
Vietnam, leng Sary attended the Lycée
Sisowath in Phnom Penh, where he
befriended his fellow student Pol Pot, then
known as Saloth Sar. In 1951, Sary went to
Paris on a government scholarship, where
he joined Sar, and the two became members
of the French Communist Party and married
sisters. When they returned to Cambodia,
both became communist activists, and in
1963 they left Phnom Penh together to
organize in the countryside.

The Vietnamese called Sary “Brother
Number Two” in the regime, and in their
1979 tribunal, found him guilty of genocide
along with Pol Pot, and sentenced both to
death in absentia. Sary more likely ranked
fourth or fifth in the regime. He served as
For-eign Min-ister and as a vice-Prime
Minister, and was on the standing commit-
tee of the Central Committee. There are of
course no smoking gun documents linking
Sary to genocide. But his high positions in

Kompong
Kamps?

PAGE 8 + LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

“breakaway. In the 19805 he*fellsoutwith

_ When €

Takeo Svay Rieng.

ake Rouge Splits, Sary Faction Joins Govt.

Norodom Sihanouk chairs a meeting of Khmer Rouge leaders wearing matching scarves, March 1973. Left to right: leng Sary, Hou Yuon, Pol Pot, Hu Nim, Khieu Samphan, Norodom Sihanouk

the government and friendship with Pol Pot
make it impossible to believe he was not
aware of and complicit in government poli-
cies. =

He may have played a role in the purges
of expatriate Cambodians who were urged
by the regime to return to Cambodia and
contribute their expertise, and then were
almost all executed. Sary claimed in a 1980
interview that he knew of the existence of
the torture center Tuol Sleng and tried to
prevent people from being sent there,
implying that he knew of the systematic
killings carried out there (possibly 200,000
people were killed in the purges that
occurred right after the KR takeover; many
of them passed through Tuol Sleng).
Sary is not a surprising leader for a

Pol Pot and Tal Mok, and lost his influen X
i phased out aid (he had been

Mekong River

their
main point
a of contact).
E After 1990 he was
. isolated from KR
¢ leadership and seen
į as an intellectual
: and a moderate, as
A was another former
leader, Son Sen (he was the Defense
Minister). Money may have been the root
cause of his past ruptures with the leader-
ship and the current split. Sary's group
controlled a large and lucrative part of the
KR's logging trade on the Thai border, and
he may himself have profited substantially
(he had two villas). At its peak, before the
Thais shut down the border in May 1995,
the timber trade was worth between $10
and $20 million a month for the KR, and
the gem trade was worth $27 million a
week. Sary's group enjoyed some limited
economic freedoms unavailable to other KR
units, such as owning cars and motorbikes.
It’s possible that a struggle recently
broke out between the so-called moderates
and the diehards when the leadership
attempted to reimpose total collectivization.
(Pol Pot claimed to have renounced com-
munism in 1981, but the KR never made
any significant changes in their practices).
Reports surfaced in June that Pol Pot had
died, and if they were true, they may have
ignited a power struggle within the KR,
though Sary contends that the reports were
false. There have been suggestions that Son
Sen is either part of the breakaway faction,
or will join it, but Sary says that he is
cooperating with Ta Mok.

Literature on the
KR points to
numerous potential
areas of dissension
within the group,
suggesting that a
split may have been
inevit-able. Before
1975, the KR was
composed of two
wings—the main
one being the more
moderate Marxist-
Leninists who
gained much of the
mass support, the
other a smaller,
Maoist wing led by
Pol Pot and leng
Sary, which pre-
vailed over the
other group and
then went about
purging it. The KR publically disavowed
Maoism soon after the 1976 death of Mao
Zedong. Thus it may well have been either
a serious personal and/or ideological quar-
rel that precipitated the breakaway.

CONSPIRACY TO HOLD POWER?

Theories are circulating, even on the high-
est levels of the coalition government, that
the whole split is an elaborate ploy on the
part of the KR designed to get into power.
Thion, a left-wing French journalist who
has written on Cambodia since the early
1970s, wrote in a rather prophetic essay in
1988: “In the case of negotiation leading to
a settlement, the Khmer Rouge will proba-
bly resort to their old tactics, namely split-
ting formally between a poli itically * “accept-
ab e ome gaara ters ike Son

zi iaid hE reall
Pot, Ta Mok arid Nuon Chea, Wich

will remain in the forest living on accumu-

lated reserves of food, gold, and ee

and refusing to bow even to the Chin
‘wishes,’ confident that they y. Wailligb a lei in
the long run to undermine any real attempt
to reconstruct a Cambodian state.”

Only events can test this theory of a
faked split. The reported KR split does have
many inexplicable elements. But Thion's
theory also seems implausible, since there
appear to be real grounds for a split.
Moreover, given Hun Sen's history as a KR
defector, the KR has considered him a trai-
tor, and it is unlikely that a unified KR
would ever agree to talk with the CPP.
And the KR has traditionally taken care not
to air its quarrels to the general public.

Obviously, none of the major role play-
ers in this scenario are at all trustworthy.
Hun Sen defected from the KR in 1978, and
rose in power under the Vietnamese occu-
pation. He has often been the most willing
to fight the KR, but his political style is
authoritarian and anti-democratic.
Recently he has made anti-foreigner state-
ments and supported legislation that would
have made it illegal for Cambodians to
have dual citizenship, a bill clearly aimed
at returning Cambodian émigrés. Some
suspect that his supporters may have been
behind or at least complicit with the rash
of crimes against foreigners in the capitol
this summer.

ROYAL MACHINATIONS

Prince Norodom Ranarridh, head of
Funcinpec, is the son of King Sihanouk,
who though largely a ceremonial
monarch, still wields considerable influ-
ence and is venerated by much of the
population. King Sihanouk may be the
most slippery character of all. He has
allied with the KR several times, begin-
ning in 1973 when he made a speech from
China calling on Cambodians to support

the KR in the struggle against the US-

backed Lon Nol government. That first
alliance was understandable, given that
no one knew at the time that the KR was
any different from the other Marxist-
Leninist national liberation groups like
the Viet Cong and the Pathet Lao.

(Continued to page 19)

nn A

CANADA COVERAGE

By NicoLas PHÉBUS

ollowing last summer's political
Pierson (see last issue for more

details) anarchists in Québec city unit-
ed their efforts and launched a three-week
campaign called “anarchists out of the
shadows.” The campaign opposed media
and police lies by going directly to the peo-
ple to explain clearly who we are, what we
think, what we do, and of course to try to
gain support. The campaign proved to be a
success.

THE LIBERAL COALITION

During the trial of the three Food not
Bombs activists, people from different polit-
ical backgrounds formed.a short-lived
group called “Coalition for Justice and
Freedom of Speech.” While anarchists were
the prime target for repression,.we were a
minority in the support group.

We soon realized that we were doing all
the work and getting no credit for it. After
some bad experiences, like people talking for
the coalition to the media before it was even
formed, and without informing the people in
jail, we decided to go it on our own.

ANARCHISTS HERE, ANARCHISTS
THERE, ANARCHISTS EVERYWHERE!

The cops were trying to suppress us. They
want us to disappear, so we decided to be
everywhere, and especially where they did-
n't want to see us! For example when they
tried to rebuild bridges with the youth by
organizing a free showing of the movie
“Trainspotting,” we were there selling our
papers and going on television.

Food not Bombs and Démanarchie held a
couple of meetings together and agreed to
hold some rallies and some public forums at
the Place d'Youville, a popular youth hang-
out where the riot started in June. This is
the place they want to clean up and kick
out all the poor and marginalised people;

Es the last place they want to see us.
At our first public forum about de people

eae u
agree

showel interest in our r ideas. And there was
no violence, despite police predictions.

MEGA MEDIA ATTENTION

The local dailies gave the rally major coverage.
The cops first said that they were not going to
let us have another meeting, because it was
illegal to meet without a permit; fuck that!

BY TARIQ HASSAN GORDON

ne year ago the Ontario Provincial
O Police (OPP) opened fire on members

of the Stoney Point First Nation dur-
ing a peaceful occupation of Ipperwash
Provincial Park. When the OPP pulled out
of the park, many people had been beaten,
one person had been shot and wounded
and Dudley George was fatally injured by a
bullet to the chest. In memory of Dudley
George, the Stoney Point First Nation held
the first annual Traditional Gathering on
September 6. After a 10 month investiga-
tion the Special Investigations Unit released
its report in August on the shooting death
of Dudley George. On the basis of that
report, OPP officer Kenneth Dean was
charged with criminal negligence causing
death. Dean was second-in-command of the
Tactics and Rescue Unit operation at
Ipperwash Provincial Park.The officer's first
court appearance was on August 13th, 1996
at the Sarnia Provincial Court House, the
same court room in which 26 Stoney Point
people are facing over 30 charges relating
to the occupation of the park.During the
court appearance the right-wing Ontario
Foundation of Individual Rights and
Equality [ON-FIRE] held a rally calling for
the state to drop the charge against the OPP
officer.

THE MACKENZIE INSTITUTE

At the rally, members of ON-FIRE were
passing out “The Ipperwash Protests—An
Unfinished Drama,” a briefing note pro-

August 3 public meeting / demo sponsored by Food Not Bombs and Démanarchie

at Place D’Youville, the site of the summer riots.

At the first rally we announced that we
would rally again within a week at the
same place. Every day of the week, the
media talked about us, asking the police
what they were going to do. Finally, after
realizing that they were losing public sup-
port, the cops said that we could rally if we
remained peaceful. The media’s attention
culminated the day of the second action
when one of the two dailies had an in depth
interview with Food not Bombs and
Démanarchie on the front page, announc-
ing the rally.

COPS AFRAID OF THE BLACK FLAG

The day before the second action,

—Démanarchie received visits from the police

twice, They were scared and wanted to know

what we were going to do. They told us that

it was going to be big and that there would

ist ae the KON the cops wanted to
meet our security crew. In the end no boys in
blue showed their faces there, only a couple
of undercover cops we had already identified.

Just before the rally started a cop com-
mented “there’s gonna be no black flag,
hey?” We told him that we hadn’t planned
any, but that there would probably be
some, since it was an anarchist rally. He

duced by the Mackenzie Institute. The
Mackenzie Institute for the Study of
Terrorism, Revolution and Propaganda is a
right wing think tank founded in 1986. The
Institute is linked to the Northern
Foundation, the Center for Conflict Studies,
the North American Region World Anti-
Communist League, Citizens for Foreign
Aid Reform and many other far-right
organizations as well as the (Canadian)
Reform Party and the Canadian Armed
Forces. John C. Thompson, the author of
the briefing note, has also written briefing
notes on the Mohawk Warrior Society and
the Oka Crisis.

In “the Legacy of Oka,” the Mackenzie
Institute suggested that the Army’s involve-
ment at Oka resulted in a moral victory for
the Warrior Society in the eyes of the pub-
lic. They also recommended that the
Canadian state hire, equip and train police
forces as a counterinsurgency force to be
used for any future confrontations with
First Nations. These heavily-armed police
forces would be deployed quickly, with no
time taken for “prolonged negotiations”
(Mackenzie Institute Exposed 1995).The role
and actions of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police during the standoff at Gustafsen
Lake and the Ontario Provincial Police at
Ipperwash Provincial Park last summer sug-
gest that the members of the government
have heeded the recommendations of the
Mackenzie Institute.

The contact between the current presi-
dent of ON-FIRE, Rick Shultz (also a mem-
ber of the West Ipperwash Property

le told them that if. joer i
14] ] =

said he didn’t want any black flags, because
every time black flags fly downtown, cops
are attacked by people, and that for him
black flags mean big problems. So we
learned that cops are scared of black flags.
Interesting, isn’t it?

TOO MUCH MEDIA ATTENTION?

200 people showed up for the second rally.
We were forced to start 20 minutes late,
because we were unable to get rid of about
20 journalists. That’s when the media start-
ed to be a real problem, they were so many
that we were having difficulties talking to
the people. Anyway, it was great.

We met with elderly anarchists who we
didn’t even know existed, some 40 year old

mothers, and so on. For the first time in our
“short history, our rally attracted “normal”

people rather than the usual mix of anar-

8. =p inks ane e tistmilitants. We even
a c y A A es

ran 3 e sold and gave out

more than 200 is issues TEE Démanarchie and

Hé...Basta! (the paper of Food not Bombs).
But the best moment was when one of
Démanarchie crew’s militants got a stand-
ing ovation when he finished a speech with
the shout of “Down with authority! Long
live the social revolution!”

At this rally we realized that there was a
real potential for revolutionary anarchism,

the Stoney Point

Association) and the Mackenzie Institute
clearly illustrates the right-wing agenda of
ON-FIRE. Rick Shultz is quoted extensively
by John C. Thompson and described as “the
self-restrained leader of ON-FIRE, and a
leading light of West Ipperwash.”

MEMORIAL FUND CLOSED

Unfortunately ON-FIRE is not the only
Opposition that the people of Stoney Point
are currently facing. Recently the Toronto
Dominion Bank unilaterally closed the
Dudley George Memorial Fund. Harry
Verburg, the Bluewater Regional Manager
for the Toronto Dominion Bank, stated in a
letter of correspondence to Marcia Simon,
treasure of the Fund, that the bank did not
agree to have the bank serve as “a refer-
ence point” for donations. The bank
was pressured by members of the Kettle
and Stony Point band council to close the
account. Kettle and Stony Point is funding
a public relations officer to co-opt and
counter the public support for: the
recognition of Stoney Point First Nation,
reserve #43. According to Marcia Simon,
there are “two First Nation communities
with one band council administration.”
But this situation was externally imposed
after the federal government appropriated
the unceded territory of Stoney Point in
1942 under the War Measures Act and relo-
cated some of the Stoney Point families to
swamp land on the Kettle Point reserve
(others became refugees across Ontario).
The federal government only recognizes

SAS ee ee eee
Demanarchie’s 15 Minutes of Fame

if we are only able to reach the people. We
were left with a paradox. The people that
came to the rally agreed with us, but if it
wasn't for media attention, they never
would have heard of us. How can we reach
these people, and get rid of the mass media
at the same time?

AN ANTI-REPRESSION GROUP

The last action of the campaign was a quiet
public assembly with no media. We met
with people and searched for answers to
police brutality and oppression. After some
hot debate and discussion, the 50 or so peo-
ple present decided to form a group. The
group, who did their first action on
September 27, choose a multi-directional
strategy. They choose to fight the police on
every front available. They want to start a
“copwatch,” do a brochure on “your rights,”
and go on the legal front. The only question
is, will the group survive the winter?

BUILDING ON WHAT WE HAVE

At the present time in Québec there is no
national revolutionary anarchist organiza-
tion. The closest thing is Démanarchie and
Food not Bombs (both present in three

- cities). Whether or not such an organization

exists, there is potential for us to grow. Will
we seize the time? Will we be able to build
on the latent potential of the working and
popular classes? If we can, how will we?
There is much debate to be had in the mou-
vement anarchiste Québecois, but one thing
is sure; we should stay out of the shadows,
and build on our new experience. x

Undercover cops sand behind speaker at August 3 rally,

the Kettle and Stony Point band council.
They refuse to negotiate with the people
living on Stoney Point territory. The
Federal government is manipulating the
division of the two communities and using
the Kettle and Stony Point band council to
undermine the position of the Stoney Point
people and fight a proxy public relations
war. The Stoney Point people urgently
need support in their struggle for self-
determination. The trial date for the 26
Stoney Point members has been set for
two weeks beginning October 21, 1996 in
Sarnia. They are in critical need of funds
for their legal expenses. A

In Canada send donations to:

“Stoney Point Legal Fund” c/o The Canadian
Alliance in Solidarity with Native Peoples

39 Spadina Rd.

Toronto, Ontario M5R 259

(416) 972-1573 fax (416) 972-6232

In the US: “Stoney Point Legal Fund”

c/o Indian World

17321 Telegraph, S. 207

Detroit, MI 48219-3143

(313) 535-9728 fax (313) 535-7822
(they can issue receipts for tax deduction)

For More Information Contact:
Marcia Simon
RR #2, Forest, Ontario NON 1J0

Anti-Colonial Action Alliance
Box 25, 197 Hunter St. W.
Peterborough, Ontario K9G 2L1

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 9

Anarchy in the Windy City

A Look at the Active Resistance Counter-Convention

By RACHEL RINALDO
hough the rest of the left barely
[rca the Chicago police were well
aware that over 700 anarchists had
descended upon the city during the 1996
Democratic National Convention. The
Active Resistance gathering was the largest
and most ambitious anarchist conference
since the San Francisco Without Borders
conference in 1989, and the police raids at
the end confirmed it. [See page 14 for
details.] Police harassment aside, as a kind
of seven-year milestone, the conference
deserves a close look—what does it say
about the state of the movement?

Along with everyone | met there, I was
impressed by the organization of the gath-
ering, which was a massive undertaking.
Having received only the vaguest informa-
tion about it, I arrived expecting chaos and
typical anarchist haphazardness. Instead,
the Autonomous Zone had done a terrific
job lining up spaces, putting out guides and
literature, providing food and security, get-
ting entertainment together, and distribut-
ing info about what else was going on in
Chicago around the Convention.

CORE CONCERNS

There were many reasons to get excited
about the conference. The turnout was
amazing, with new, young faces, as well as
the familiar comrades, from all over North
America. The variety of workshops was

©overwhelming—it was difficult to choose

among them. There were unexpectedly
interesting speakers at various events. And
unlike some, I think the idea of the core
workshops was a good one. Core workshops
focused on broad themes, and then split
into sub-groups which met on five consec-
utive days, culminating in a plenary session
at which participants related the themes of
their discussions and the conclusions, if
there were any.

who look “punk” or “crusty” participated
meaningfully in the conference, and have
an unquestioned commitment to the anar-
chist movement, a lot of crusties there were
doing the cool crusty thing, which consists
of traveling around all summer from gath-
ering to gathering. That’s perfectly fine,
except that having too many transients
with little to contribute beyond anti-intel-
lectualism really detracts from serious work
at a conference, and moreover, ensures that
we appear to be a movement rooted in one
particular youth culture. I want to stress
that I’m not directing this criticism at all of

explains why the discussions in most of the
workshops remained frustratingly basic.
Several people I talked to commented that
they felt like they were reinventing the
wheel in their workshops. My own experi-
ence in the Building Revolutionary
Organizations core sub-group was that
although the discussion was more advanced
than in most groups, we did not really
break any new ground. For example, on
one of the days it turned into a heated
debate about the utility of local versus
national organizations, which unfortunate-
ly, was more vague than it should have

Resistance and | would be delighted to see
it flourish. But even many of the NAC dis-
cussions (formal & informal) at this confer-
ence felt like another instance of spending
a great deal of time rehashing basic stuff on
which we already agreed.

TROUBLING TENDENCIES

As | said, the problems at Active Resistance
had nothing to do with the organization of
the conference. They are problems inside
the anarchist movement, and as such, they
highlight some of the more troubling ten-
dencies of contemporary North American
anarchism. The level of discussion clearly
shows how vague and unsophisticated our
theory and strategy remain, despite numer-
ous attempts to develop them. Moreover,
the transient nature of the people in the
movement gets us bogged down in many of
the same old debates over and over again.
And not least, we spend far too much ener-
gy on internal arguments and navel-gazing,
and not enough time doing tangible work.
Instead we need to start implementing our
ideas, and learn as we go about doing that.

The more outwardly active we are, espe-
cially if we have some perceived and/or real
successes, the more people will be attracted
to us. And thev will stay in the movement
because the movement is accomplishing
things, not just holding an endless proces-
sion of meetings and tiny demos. This is
part of the reason infoshops have become
so popular—those involved are accomplish-
ing something tangible.

In addition to doing more external
activism, everyone should be boning up on
theory and strategy. We can form discus-
sion/study groups on broad or narrow top-
ics, and push groups of which we are mem-
bers to raise the level of discussion beyond
short-term strategy. No matter what kind of

group it is, it ei addressing
questions about longer-term goals, h

_.. Unsurprisingly, the cores didn't quite —
work as planned. It was impossible to antici-
` pate the political interests of conference-

ition happ ns, how. movements form, etc

goers; many sub-group topics ended up
being combined and discussions in most
groups did not always follow the intended
agendas. For a variety of reasons but mainly
because so many people came late or left the
conference early, the sub-groups didn’t have
the same people in them every day, making
it hard to build on discussions day by day,
as the format intended. Nevertheless, the
cores succeeded in getting people together
on an ongoing basis to talk about some of
the key issues facing the anarchist move-
ment—community organizing, building revo-
lutionary movements, and alternative eco-
nomics—and despite some of the confusion it
created, I think that their flexibility on
themes and agenda was positive.

But | came away from Active Resistance
unsatisfied. It wasn’t just that little concrete
came out of it—it’s much more complicated
than that. And in fact, it had almost noth-
ing to do with the conference itself or the
way it was organized. In most ways, the
Autonomous Zone could not have done a
better job. The problems I observed at AR
reflect larger problems in the anarchist
movement that surface at such large and
fairly representative gatherings.

THE COOL CRUSTY THING

The problems basically fall into two cate-
gories: the people who attended the confer-
ence and the nature of the discussions that
took place. There were only two issues for
which the organizers bear some responsibil-
ity. First, | would like to have seen more
plenaries, where the group as a whole came
together. Without this, the conference felt
somewhat disconnected and discontinuous
as it was always being broken up into small
groups. The other issue is a bit nitpicky. The
contingents to demonstrations during the
convention were not well-organized or
well-publicized. 1 think that's fairly minor
since the anarchist turnout for those events
was fine anyway. -

The first aspect of Active Resistance that
struck me (and many others, I’m sure) was
the sheer number of crusty punks. Maybe I
noticed them more because | spent my first
two nights at the Spice Factory (one of the
two main conference sites), where most of
them were crashing too. While many people

the punk or crusty scene, which I think has
produced more revolutionary anarchists
than any other youth culture in recent
memory, but at those individuals who come
mainly to get fucked up, show up only for
meals, and disparage everyone else. In gen-
eral, one of the strongest aspects of the
conference was that groups on both sides of
the “lifestylist” argument, who haven't par-
ticularly trusted each other, were able to
transcend these divisions and communicate.

It was thrilling to see so many new folks
at AR, people who have only recently
become active. On the other hand, it’s hard

been, with people refraining from naming
names. Nevertheless, it was the feistiest
debate thus far, so I was getting into it. Yet
I had a nagging feeling that I’d been
through this before. And indeed | had, for
as every Love and Rager certainly knows,
this same debate has been going on in the
anarchist movement for years (check the
letters sections of Anarchy and Fifth
Estate), and has mainly been solved by
those who are ideologically opposed to
large-scale organizations remaining in
smaller, local groups.

I also witnessed all the usual self-flagel-

-In general, one of the strongest aspects of the confer-
ence was that groups on both sides of the “lifestylist”
argument, who haven’t particularly trusted each other,
were able to transcend these divisions and communicate.

to have a workshop, especially a core work-
shop, that mixes people who are very inex-
perienced at anarchist activism with those
who've been involved for a long time. It’s
rather like being at a meeting where people
keep coming in and bringing up questions
that were discussed half an hour ago. Since
no one is really at fault here, and it would-
n't be fair to exclude people from work-
shops, I don’t foresee any solutions to this
perennial problem except for more
homogenous conferences.

This same phenomenon partially

PAGE 10 ° LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

lation over the issues of white skin and
class privileges. These are real things, and
it’s crucial that we recognize them, but it’s
also time to move beyond endless pontifi-
cating. Now that we've acknowledged it, we
should be coming up with some concrete
solutions. Our organizations and our work
can (and does, in some cases) focus on
issues like prison abolition, immigration,
and neo-liberal economics that directly
affect poor people and people of color.

The Network of Anarchist Collectives will
grow as a concrete result of Active

readers for new activists which intro-
duce them to basic texts and familiarize
them with ongoing or past debates. It does-
n't matter who produces them—the idea
would be for :. given person to collect sey-
eral readers on various aspects of anar-
chism. Love & Rage could reprint the
Building Revolutionary Organizations read-
er that one member put together for Active
Resistance; someone could do a Social
Ecology and Anarchism reader; ARA could
do a Fighting Fascism reader, and so on.
The readers should be widely distributed,
available from the organizations and indi-
viduals that created them, and sold at all
the infoshops. Such readers would help fos-
ter a sense of ideological continuity for the
anarchist movement. In fact, a number of
these reáders already exist—all we need to
do is mass-produce and distribute them
(anyone want to take on this project?). The
newly formed Institute for Anarchist
Studies is also taking a gigantic step in this
direction by providing funds for anarchist
writers to create the new body of theoreti-
cal literature that we are so sorely lacking.

No matter.how much fun a gigantic con-
ference like Active Resistance is, structural-
ly and otherwise it’s probably not the kind
of conference which will produce immedi-
ate or earth-shattering results. The AR
organizers took on the incredibly difficult
task of trying to simultaneously organize
an open-ended anarchist gathering that
would appeal to the broadest number of
anarchists, as well as a focused core com-
ponent that would appeal to and help the
work of anarchist organizers. The “gather-
ing” side of things sometimes overflowed
into the organizing part, but the AR orga-
nizers succeeded in developing some innov-
ative new forms and new ideas that will be
useful in creating conferences.

Despite all the drawbacks and problems
with “anarchist gatherings,” they are effec-
tive (and fun!) every so often and a good
way to gauge the general state of the
movement. In the meantime, smaller and
more focused conferences and activist pro-
jects will accomplish more to build the
movement concretely on a theoretical and
practical level.*«

var

By Suzy SUBWAYS

hen asked by MTV what he
Woo of the protests outside the

Republican National Convention
in San Diego, one delegate said, “They're
totally irrelevant.” This is the same senti-
ment many television viewers had about
the conventions themselves. Each election
year, the conventions are less a place for
politicians to debate politics. and more a
place for them to put on a nauseating show
of unity.

Both the Democratic and Republican
National Committees attempted to margin-
alize any protest by setting up “free speech
zones”—large fenced-off areas away from
the entrances to the convention. These
cages were large enough to make all the
protests look small, and far enough away
from the action to allow all of the delegates
to forget about the presence of demonstra-
tors and our issues. The most successful and
inspiring demonstrations were the ones that
refused to go into the cage, challenging

- the state’s regulation of protest.

At the Active Resistance Counter-
Convention, in Chicago a week
before the DNC, anarchists gath-
ered to build a movement that
can confront the state and
organize to take its mil-
itance beyond mere
tactics. Over
700 people
went to
Active

Resistance,
to share skills,
network, and dis-
cuss the state of the
i ent.

served as a base for organizing
the anarchist presence at protests
targeting the convention.

SAN DIEGO

The Republicans wanted to put out a mod-
erate image of themselves at their conven-
tion, to avoid the negative press they got in
"92, and to distance themselves from the
unpopular Newt Gingrich. They even put
women and people of color up on stage.
But it was still plain as day that the party is
only moving to the right. Speakers spent a
good deal of time talking about rape one
night, but only to justify policies that
appeal to racist crime hysteria, like building
more prisons and passing tougher sentenc-
ing laws. TV cameras focused on Black peo-
ple in 1/5 of their shots of audience mem-
bers, although only 3% of the delegates
were Black. Susan Molinari went on at
length about her immigrant grandfather
finding “the American Dream,” all the while
exerting a visible effort to hide her New
York accent.

The Republicans avoided debate
about abortion by hardly mentioning
the issue. But Ralph Reed, executive
director of the Christian Coalition, told
the New York Times he didn’t mind: “If
they were to give me a choice between
a prime-time speech and a third of the
delegates being associated with the
religious conservative movement, I
would take the latter any day of the
week.” The party platform still calls for

move = de he d California
rented for AR Aztlan, a colonized part of Mex

a constitutional amendment outlawing
abortion.

TWO CITIES, WHITE AND BROWN

The city of San Diego is only a few
miles from the Mexico border, but if
you watched the news there you
would think San Diego is a city
of white conservatives, and you
would see no signs of poverty
or exploitation. It’s like there
are two cities—the one

you see if you or your
family came from
Mexico, and the

one you see if
Y.0s0 tae
white
and

grew
up with
the privi-
lege of US
citizenship.
One of the largest
and most militant
demonstrations was held
by the Raza Rights
Coalition, which had an orga-
__hizing conference the day before
the convention. The demo called for
an end to anti-immigrant laws like
proposition 187 and English-only laws
and it advanced more militant demands like
“US out of Mexico!”

The La Raza march began in Chicano
Park, a green space with murals represent-
ing Chicano/a people's history painted on
the large columns holding up the highway

ramps above. The march was made up of |

mostly young Chicano/a people. Most visi-
ble were the Brown Berets, a socialist grou

the US. MeChA (a Chicano/a and
Mexicano/a student organization) groups
from several universities in California and
the Southwest were also there.

Chants were spontaneous but familiar to
the marchers. “Viva La Raza!” “Viva El
Barrio!” “Deport Pete Wilson!” and “We
didn’t cross the border, the border crossed
us!” Raza security was effective in keeping
the march of over 1,000 people together.
We walked over 20 blocks to the conven-
tion site and back, through a Chicano/a
neighborhood, refusing to go into the
protest cage.

Another march left from Chicano Park
later that afternoon to protest the California
Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 209,
which would dismantle Affirmative Action
in California. This march was organized by
some liberal Chicano groups and did end up
going into the cage. It was also mainly
young Chicano/as, but there were more
women in visible organizing positions than
at the La Raza march, and several openly
gay people spoke.

La Resistencia held a protest at the
Mexico border. It was a small, feisty crowd,
a mix of white, Chicano/a, and Mexicano/a.
Several Mexicans climbed on top of the
border wall on the Mexico side, and at the
urging of some anarchists, one Mexican

- guy jumped down into the United States.

Unfortunately, neither the march organizers
nor the anarchists involved took responsi-
bility for the situation. Finally, two other
demonstrators offered to find him a place to
stay, scurrying him out of the clutches of

the con-

3 near-

by INS
agents,
until he could
reach his family
members in the
States.
Pro-choice activists
knew well in advance that
Operation Rescue was plan-
ning to block clinics that perform
abortions during both conventions.
Police told clinic owners in San Diego
that they wouldn’t protect clinics from
OR, and advised clinics to shut their own
doors. Only one clinic stayed open. OR
never showed up there, and fortunately so
because clinic defense there was just orga-
nized as escorting, not to keep OR from
blocking the clinic.

Being in San Diego during the conven-

tion was often a disturbing experience for.

radical activists. Psycho right-wing
Christians were wandering around in T-
shirts with homophobic jokes on them. Two
“pro-lifer” men wearing bizarre white robes
and carrying huge silver staffs walked into
the protest pit. Strangers yelled at each
other in front of TV cameras.

But we also met a lot of interesting,
smart, fun
people. At
the last
demon-
stration, a
march of
all the
progres-
ny e

ntion,

nections
heat
activists
made with
each other
paid off in
our ability
to coordi-
nate spon-
taneous action.

The march was made up of queer groups
(both radical and liberal), NOW, some Asian
and Latino students, and some other groups.
It kicked off just after sunset with candles
and a horribly corny song that we were all
supposed to sing. ACT UP! attempted to
push things further by confronting the mass
of delegates where they were leaving the
convention. When the march was led back
to the “free speech” zone, some Asian stu-
dents, radical queer activists, and anarchists
started chanting, “Don’t go in the cage!” A
segment of the march headed back down-
town on the sidewalks and sometimes the
street, yelling at the Republicans who
crowded around the bars, and making a lot
of pro-queer, anti-racist, anti-sexist noise.

CHICAGO

In 1968, thousands of radical students came
to Chicago to confront the Democratic
party for its role in the imperialist war in
Vietnam and were beaten by the Chicago
police. In a year when radical movements
are much weaker, Mayor Daley (son of the

- Noton the Guest List or the Newscasts:

Resistance at the Republicrats’ Conventions

notorious mayor of Chicago in
1968) welcomed Tom Hayden and
other former Students for a
Democratic Society organizers to a rally
called “Return to Chicago °68/°96,”
complete with a 38-member cast revival of
the musical “Hair.”

Jesse Jackson, speaking inside the con-
vention, criticized the prison economy, say-
ing that prisons represent the number one
growth industry in America, and expressed
disappointment in Clinton for signing the
welfare bill. But instead of actually doing
something to fight for prisoners and poor
people—which one would have to leave the
Democratic Party to do—Jackson empha-
sized unity against the Republicans. “The
last time we gathered in Chicago high
winds ripped apart our big tent...we lost to
Nixon by the margins of our despair,” said
Jackson. Unfortunately, despair is real, and
to pin one’s hopes on the Democrats is to
ignore the reality that their interests are not
those of oppressed people.

THE ANARCHIST ALTERNATIVE

The anarchist activists at Active Resistance
came together in the tradition of the radi-
cals of '68, hoping to build a movement
that can rip apart the big tent in the '90s.
The Counter-Convention started one week
before the convention, and continued to be
an organizing base for anarchist participa-
tion during the convention. Over 700 peo-
ple attended. The group was mostly young
people, and it was predominantly: white.

August 11 March in San Diego

The organizers’ goals were for activists to
network and share skills learned from our
often-isolated projects, and to facilitate the
effort to build a better-organized anarchist
movement.

The Autonomous Zone infoshop in
Chicago put a lot of good work and thought
into the Counter-Convention. Every day
had time for networking meetings, “free
skool” workshops on specific issues and
skills, and core groups. Three hours each
day for five days were set aside for core
group meetings, where the same people dis-
cussed the same topic each day. There were
three main topics—alternative economics,
community organizing, and building revo-
lutionary movements—with subgroups with-
in them.

Core groups experienced mixed success.
A lot of people jumped from group to
group, so a meeting would have different
people in it from one day to the next. Many
facilitators didn’t seem prepared to talk
about specific subjects, and many partici-

(Continued to page 14)

Photos of Chicago demonstrations By Peter Ford.

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 «e LOVE AND RAGE ¢ PAGE 11

Notes on the Love 2 |
Really Long Road Trips Are th

By CAROLYN

his past summer Kieran and I went on
T: Love & Rage-sponsored speaking

tour to both build and get a better pic-
ture of the revolutionary anarchist move-
ment in the US and Canada. In seven
weeks, we met with anti-authoritarian
activists in 25 cities. We began in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and ended in San
Diego, California at the demonstrations
against the Republican National
Convention. In between we hit Milwaukee,
Chicago, Lansing, Detroit, Hamilton,
Toronto and Peterborough in Ontario, and
Montreal, Quebec, Montpelier, VT, Boston,
New York, Baltimore, Washington DC,
Chattanooga, Knoxville, Atlanta, New
Orleans, Houston, Albuquerque, Fresno, San
Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and San
Diego. In each city we met in bookstores,
info-shops, cafes and comrades’ homes to
have focused political discussions with local
groups of anti-authoritarian and anarchist
activists.

WHY. A SPEAKING TOUR |

The goals of the tour were to raise the level
of dialogue and debate between revolution-
ary anarchists, develop a more nuanced
understanding of the specific conditions
facing revolutionaries in different cities,
and get a better grasp on national and con-
tinental patterns of social struggles. We
tried to foster comradely and principled
political discussions. While honestly airing
differences, we hoped to build unity with
revolutionary anarchist activists around
common projects and issues.

WHAT WE FOUND

Explaining what we experienced in 25
different cities is hard. In their communi-
ties people are mainly involved in book-
stores and infoshops, Food Not Bombs,
pirate radio-stations and local media pro-
jects, poetry and art groups and a couple
of free schools. These projects primarily
serve the social and cultural needs of the
already existing anarchist scene. There
are varying degrees of success in gaining
broader community interest, though hon-
estly none of them can be described as
incredibly successful.

Many people find it difficult to get
beyond the narrow cultural appeal and
entrenched middle class values of a lot of
anarchists. The racial, class and gender
composition of the anarchist scene has
remained consistent over the past decade.
It is largely made up of 20-something
white males, of mixed to thoroughly mid-
dle-class backgrounds, whose forms of cul-
tural resistance are limited to reactions to
the white middle-class mainstream (with a
few exceptions). The anarchist scene as a
whole has effectively depoliticized race,
class and gender issues; either speaking in
hushed tones about issues of comfort and
alienation or boldly declaring support for
people of colors’ rights. to self-determina-
tion, a claim that often merely justifies
inaction and maintains the current scene’s
composition.

A deeper problem concerns the tension
between building a culture of resistance in

the absence of social movements versus—

building social movements that will in turn
generate counter-institutions and a radical
- culture. Obviously there is a dynamic rela-
tionship between the two.

Below | outline of some of the tenden-
cies | see in the anarchist movement, break
them down based on types of organizing,
analyze them and add my own thoughts on
strategy and revolutionary possibilities.

ANARCHIST DISORGANIZATION

Activist organizations are undeveloped in
our movements as a whole. While many
anarchists speak nostalgically of the mili-
tias in Spain or even the anti-authoritarian
tendencies in the Black liberation and stu-
dent movements of the 1960s, contempo-

- heads in the music scenes. Most

exception of Toronto ARA) but in

rary anarchism has few concrete examples
of functioning revolutionary organizations.
This fact combined with the examples of
ideological organizations we see—the fos-
silized Party-sects, remnants of. the new
left—and the relative low level of social
movements in our generation causes a con-
servatism among many anarchists about
building organizations. A genuine dis-
agreement with the way some left sectarian
parties organize has grown into outright
hostility to organizations that are anything
more than cliques of friends hiding behind
an official-sounding title of affinity group
or collectives. We spoke to many anarchists
who are critical of this organizational con-

tendency with the most potential to
become a mass movement. Many ARAs
have developed politically as the groups
repeatedly come up against the systemic
roots of racism.

FIGHTING RACISM...

ARA has put anti-racism at the center of
the struggle for human liberation. It has
consistently fought against white suprema-
cy in its many different forms. ARA
activists have started to target the role of
the police in maintaining white supremacy.
And in Detroit, ARA has fought for non-
discriminatory hiring practices in the build-

Contemporary anarchism has few
concrete examples of functioning
revolutionary organizations.

servatism and are developing solid organi-
zations or are open to new organizational
formations. Many have taken steps in this
direction by building organizations which
have roots in the anarchist scene but aren’t
locked into one subculture.

Building a mass anti-authoritarian
movement will take more than unity within
the current anarchist milieu. We need to
translate existing anarchist organizational
frameworks and ideology into a living
body of revolutionary praxis that new
social movements Can make ‘their own. It is
our responsibility to make sure the current
anarchist movement is receptive to and a
part of the new forms that movements
take. How well we are prepared for this

task depends on our understanding of the

current state of the scene, a thorough
analysis of the conditions in the US, and
on having a strategy.

ANTI-RACIST ACTION.
NETWORK

The growth of the Anti-Racist
Action (ARA) Network is a good
example of this tendency. ARAs
have their roots in the anti-racist
skinhead and punk rock sub-cul-
tures of the late 1980s and early
1990s. The movement emerged as
a youth-based militant response
to the rise of right-wing skin-

of the original ARAs died out in
the early ’90s (with the important

the past couple of years they
have reemerged, and their social
base and strategy have expanded
in critical ways. Toronto ARA’s
integration of the street militancy
of the German anti-fascist groups
with a commitment to doing
broad-based organizing and
excellent art and cultural work
has made them a model many for
other new chapters.

During the tour we met with
ARA members in Minneapolis,
Detroit, Lansing, and Baltimore.
We also met with other anti-
racist activists, such as Michael
Novick, editor of Turning the
Tide and member of People
Against Racist Terror (PART);
members of Bay Area Coalition
Organizing for our Reproductive
Rights (BACORR); and Noel
Ignatiev, editor of Race Traitor.
Just about everyone we met with
on the tour was involved in some
anti-racist activity. :

ARA is concentrated in the
Midwest, though ARA chapters
have been started all over the US
and Canada by people from |
diverse backgrounds. ARA is the

PAGE 12 ¢ LOVE AND RAGE ¢ OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

ing of a new baseball stadium, targeting
the economic exploitation of the Black
community.

Minneapolis and Lansing ARA have both
tried to integrate the fight against patri-
archy into their work by building a more
militant reproductive rights movement,
working on lesbian and gay liberation and
struggling with men’s sexism in the move-
ment. Though many individuals in ARA
may be resistant to being called on their
sexism or racism and to “watering down”
the traditional focus of ARA, most'in ARA
don’t view women’s liberation and anti-
capitalism as diversions from the central
focus. Instead they’re hungry for new ideas
and higher levels of coordination between
often divided movements. This integration
of perspectives and bringing disparate
movements together in practice is an

important political development.

ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Another growing current in the anarchist
movement is community organizing. This
trend is not concentrated in specific orga-
nizations or localities. It is united in the
desire to see anarchism have a greater
impact on people’s daily lives, empower
people, and win actual changes in the rela-
tions of power. They want to engage in real
projects such as food and clothes distribu-
tion, alternative-living models and at the
same time attempt to influence the politics
of local housing struggles, rape crisis cen-
ters or neighborhood anti-police brutality
campaigns. In DC, Chicago, the Bay Area,
Vermont, Montreal, Quebec, and elsewhere,
anarchists are increasingly organizing out-
side the anarchist scene, usually individu-
ally joining already existing community
struggles.

Many others in this tendency, in fact
probably the majority, seek to redefine
community to mean anarchists, squatters
or counter-cultural youth. In practice,
organizing often takes a back seat to cre-
ating a self-enclosed comfort zone for
those rather than a basis to further politi-
cal struggle. While these two segments
overlap considerably, this article focuses
only on the former, as | believe it is a far
more important development.

BUILDING A BASE

The strengths of the community organizing
tendency are (1) it recognizes the narrow”
social base of the anarchist movement, (2)
it has a political strategy to try to broaden
this base, and (3) it has an orientation
toward communities already in struggle.
Some good examples of this tendency are
taking place in Washington DC, Montreal
and California. Anarchists there were

Rage Summer Tour
e Key to Smashing the State

involved in, respectively, a community
anti-police brutality coalition, welfare
rights and student organizing, and a vari-
ety of other struggles include fighting for
affirmative action for women and people of
color and struggles around public housing.

In Montreal we-met with Démanarchie
(loosely translated as democracy and anar-
chy), a Francophone anarchist organization
with local groups in Quebec City and
Montreal. Démanarchie began as a newspa-
per collective in Montreal in late 1994.
They came together out of the anti-
Fascist/student politics milieu to put out a
newspaper with an anti-authoritarian per-
spective on the struggles in which they
were involved. Demanarchie engages in
three overlapping areas of work: welfare
reform, housing issues and fighting cuts in
public education. They are critical of the
counter-cultural tendencies of the anarchist
scene, and think» anarchists have conceded
class struggle to the authoritarian left. They
have also individually and as a group been
involved in anti-fascist organizing and
have a very queer-positive scene.

In DC we met with the L&R local as well
as members of Positive Force (a long-time
DC political punk collective), student
activists and folks from the American
Kurdistan Information Network (AKIN), a
Kurdish solidarity group. Members of L&R
have been involved in a. community-based
police brutality coalition, People Against
Police Brutality (PAPB) in Alexandria, VA,
which was started by family members of
victims of police murder and brutality.
They have also helped to initiate a city-
wide anti-police brutality network, Peoples
Defense Network (PDN), which tries to fos-
ter new-groups based in particular neigh-
borhoods. Similar coalitions are forming in
many other cities, led by families of victims
of the various wars on the poor (police bru-
tality, welfare cuts, attacks on immigrants,
etc.). In these community-based struggles,
anarchism becomes something you can win

people to during an ongoing struggle.

In the Bay Area we met with anarchists
and anti-authoritarians working on a vari-
ety of issues. The IWW has a significant
role in the anarchist movement there, and
they operate out of the Long Haul infoshop.
Politically, the IWW consistently upholds
anarchism from a working class perspec-
tive, and is growing through concrete
activist projects. We also met and talked to
anarchists active in the student movements
in California around affirmative action and
the fight against Proposition 187, They
have seen the movement ebb over the past
year, but seem to be building a solid multi-
racial student movement with anti-authori-
tarian tendencies. Much of this work has

structural divisions along class, race, gen-
der, sexuality are personal or localized
issues—the result of lack of communication.
This is just a shallow understanding of “the
personal is political.” While there are inter-
personal dynamics to all forms of oppres-
sion, they are not the roots. The fact that
most anarchists doing community organiz-
ing are not part of a revolutionary anar-
chist organization makes it more likely that
they will submerge their politics to make it
easier to organize the community. We need
to develop an anarchist framework that
combines insights gained in the day-to-day
struggles of oppressed people with a theo-
retical understanding of revolutionary
anarchism.

We need to develop an anarchist framework
that combines insights gained in the day-to-day
struggles of oppressed people with a theoretical

understanding of revolutionary anarchism.

been done by a few anarchists operating in
the larger student movement milieu. Their
anti-authoritarian politics have had some
impact, though the larger anarchist scene
has only participated sporadically, mostly
in street demonstrations. The anarchists |
spoke to talked about the vibrancy of the
student movement, not only because of its
politics but because of the potential of
reaching out and into new communities.

Currently most anarchists who are mov-
ing toward community organizing are doing
so. individually, not-within movements: or
organizations. A large problem is the sys-
tem’s ability to cope with the gains made in
one community struggle by targeting other
communities to recuperate its losses.

The community organizing approach
tends to reinforce the world-view that

ANTI-IMPERIALISM & SOLIDARITY

A third major tendency in the anarchist
movement is the anti-imperialist and. soli-
darity tendency. This tendency is mostly
involved in two major activities—(1) propa-
gandizing and providing material support
to armed revolutionary movements and (2)
supporting political prisoners and fighting
against the brutality in prisons.

This tendency has grown since the early
‘90s when it was mostly represented by the
Canadian anti-authoritarian newspapers
Arm the Spirit (ATS) and Prison News
Service (PNS). Since then a number of
Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) groups have
formed. In the past year and a half many of
these new ABC groups formed the ABC
Federation in order to coordi-
nate their activities and build
political unity. These groups
then split into two separate
organizations. One ABC
Federation (centered in NJ and
Jacksonville ABC) specifically
and only supports political pris-
oners. The other (centered in
Baltimore, DC, and NY ABC)
addresses prison issues more
broadly and more explicitly pro-

groups now publish many
newsletters and papers, like
Claustrophobia from DC,
Resistance from NY, the ABC
Federation Bulletin from NJ, and
the ABC Discussion Bulletin
from Baltimore.

The anti-imperialist and soli-
darity tendency is probably the
most ideologically-oriented
tendency in the anarchist
movement. Anti-imperialists
argue that the struggle of
oppressed nationalities for self-
determination is the primary
struggle against the global cap-
italist system. A more sophisti-
cated strain argues that anti-
authoritarians need to support
self-determination while recog-
nizing that the national libera-
tion struggles of the 20th cen-
tury have been authoritarian
and capitalist.

Over the past two or three
years, most anti-imperialist and
solidarity activists have been
engaged in Zapatista support
work and have been involved in
the struggle to free Mumia Abu-
Jamal. The movements around
these two issues have declined
since last year. Many people
attributed the decline in-Mumia
support work to Mumia’s defense
campaign’s shift toward the legal
front, while others spoke of the

motes anarchist politics. ABC”

failure to broaden the movement beyond
leftist circles.

There has also been a decline in
Zapatista support work by anarchists. The
reasons for this include the undemocratic
structure of the National Commission for
Democracy in Mexico (the US Zapatista
solidarity organization), the information
blackout in the major US media sources,
vague criticisms of the negotiation process,
and anarchist disorganization. A few revo-
lutionary anti-authoritarians have kept at it
through non-NCDM projects such as
Accion Zapatista in Austin, Texas, and
actions by New York ABC and anarchists in
Montreal.

The anti-imperialist and solidarity ten-
dency represents some of the most militant
and politically sophisticated anarchists in
the movement. At the same time, this ten-
dency has had limited success in building
broad-based campaigns. While the nature
of the work entails particular difficulties,
more outreach and clearer goals are in
order. Entire communities suffer from both
the brutal. policies of US imperialism and
the ongoing effects of the criminalization
of young people of color. Anti-authoritari-
ans need to be building in the communities
most sharply affected if our politics are
going to have the potential to grow into a
mass movement. as

TAKING IT TO HIGHER GROUND

The US and Canada are experiencing mas-
sive economic and social dislocation on a
scale not witnessed since the turn of the
century. The restructuring of the interna-
tional economic order creates new obsta-
cles for revolutionary, change, but it also
creates new opportunities, aS more and
more people become disillusioned and will-
ing to the fight against the system.

What role will revolutionary anarchists
play in this fight? Many anarchists seem to
have a higher level of seriousness than in
the past decade. Anarchists have created a
structure of institutions: food co-ops,
squats, info-shops, alternative media, etc.
But the anarchist movement is largely ‘iso-
lated from the poor and from marginalized
working class people: welfare recipients,
the homeless, temp workers, and minimum
wage workers, The anarchist movement
has failed to grow beyond its narrow sub-
culture. The persistence of anti-organiza-
tional politics keeps us marginal and
unable to consolidate gains that our good
work could bring.

Our tour sought to develop closer ties
and to raise the level of political discussion
among revolutionaries, analyzing the dif-
ferent struggles that are happening and
figuring out how we can build a more
cohesive movement. We did this by
explaining where Love and Rage sees the
potential for expanding resistance in the
US: the growth of the ARA Network; the
massive protests against Proposition 187
and for Affirmative Action on the West
Coast; the many high school and college
walkouts; militant demonstrations fighting
against the budget cuts on the East Coast;
and. the possibilities the Zapatistas offer
revolutionaries in the Americas. We talked
about revolutionary pluralism, building
mass democratic movements, and our
commitment to militant street tactics.
Having a common political language and
understanding of what's happening with as
many people as possible is essential to
building broad democratic social move-
ments and taking it to higher ground.

This is an incomplete article in many
ways. If you would like to offer your
comments on the tour and this article
please do. x

[Author’s note: There were lotsa great
photos taken on the trip: of new comrades,
demonstrations, partying and some revolu-
tionary cats and dogs. Unfortunately the
film was damaged on the road. Thanks for _
all the burritos and beers. See ya next year!
Love, Carolyn]

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 13

Conventions...

(Continued from page 11)

pants had never talked about the issues
before. The groups in the building revolu-
tionary movements core were combined
and reorganized until only one or two out
of the original twelve remained.

But several groups got a lot out of their
meetings, and are continuing to work on
projects together. The community-oriented
group. in the alternative economics core is
putting together a resource guide for the
anarchist community on socialization with-
in our community and our relationships to
other communities. One idea they discussed
was that the anarchist “ghetto” is one of
people who marginalize themselves volun-
tarily, and that people of color, women,
and queers are marginalized against their
will within it. A strategy needs to be devel-
oped for people to break out of these alien-
ating situations and work together for
change in society.

The community organizing core was
productive and exciting. It was very struc-
tured, with a focus on training organizers.
The group discussing building revolution-
ary organizations, in the building revolu-
tionary movements core, talked about the
need for a higher level of organization in
the anarchist movement. We also discussed
strategy for building a working-class. anar-
chist movement.

Most meetings and discussions at Active
Resistance were very male-dominated. Also,
there were no specifically. feminist work-
shops, except for a few in the free’ skool,
and the women’s caucus. The few times
women got together, it was more often a
social: gathering or planning for the Sister
Subverter gathering in Wisconsin, than to
talk about fighting for women’s liberation.
A small group got together to discuss the
exclusion of transgendered women and
boys al women’s festivals like Sister
Subverter, and how. we can end this exclu-
sion. But since five out of ten people at the
meeting were men, some of whom didn't
share the same basic understandings of the

world. as.the women in.the room, the group |

irónically ended up-having to spend most of

Chicago
Snea s—Hald

- ACTIVE RESISTANCE

world), one of the buildings. used by
Active Resistance was raided by police.

everyone to. sit down. Fhey pushed down

ple, two of whom had to be hospitalized.

Conference participants report that: when
they asked to see a search warrant, officers
told them a search warrant wasn't neces-
sary. No arrests have been reported.

officers arrived at the second site, counter-

the building.
_ The police raids came at ‘the ae
day of r arrests: of activists ane inde

pe were arrested: at
the Oppressed process
parade's traffic
-o

| procession. Their e: camer
and some of their film
ao ee

PAGE 14 +. LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

‘On August 29 at 8 p.m., as Clinton was.

speaking before the Democrats (and the. the week of. activities. Working

Five to eight uniformed: oe une a
weren't wearing badges—forced their way. |
in through the back door, searched

through people's personal belongings, and

confiscated radia equipment and papers.
When they came in, the cops ordered. p:
; -to say this earned
anyone who didn’t sit. They kicked one
woman and pepper-sprayed several: peos F

p
Life organizers. and. pinned

Police vans then proceeded to another a
Active Resistance meeting site. By the time Festival of Life f
-chist “mob” to
convention participants had already
removed their belongings and evacuated
MacDonald, Bonnie Tocw

its time discussing the need
for all-women's space at such
festivals in the first place. E
Many people at Active f

Resistance talked about being
frustrated by the number of
crusty punks who didn’t seem
to be going to many of the
workshops, but still somehow
define our movement to out-
siders. The best thing about
the Counter-Convention was
how often people talked
about wanting more organi-
zation in the anarchist move-
ment, so that we can reach
beyond punk culture and
work more effectively with
other movements for human
liberation, especially move-
ments of people of color.

IN THE STREETS

Affinity groups from Active Resistance
played an important role in many protests
at the Democratic convention. At a march
against anti-immigration laws, anarchists
made up about half the protest, along with
Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a Chicano/a group,
and smaller groups from the Puerto Rican

Anarchists crash the Denoi party at the Not On The Guest List demonstration

the organizers and the safety. of the many
children present. The march finally split
again at the end, when the anarchists
refused to go into the cage.

Not On the Guest List, a coalition of
groups including the Prairie Fire Organizing
Committee, the Autonomous Zone, the
Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Women’s
Action Coalition, and the National Lawyers

San Diego.... It’s like there are two cities—the
one you see if you or your family came from
Mexico, and the one you see if you’re white and
grew. up with the privilege of US citizenship.

Cultural Center and some white leftist orga-
nizations. Largely because anarchists took
the initiative, the march took over the street
and kept it. But when the Chicano/a orga-
nizers objected to the mostly white anar-
chists taking the lead and at the same time

pushing the cops’ limits by faking the oes

site traffic lane, the:

out of respect for: the: O oF

Cops freak

and other radicals revisiti

the protests at the 196:
harassed hy the Chicago police t

authorities, =
At around the san
raided the Active |
spaces, they rounded

and of. causing 10
the help of a beer ‘bottle ;

Guild held a march of over 1,000 people
demanding freedom for political prisoners
and an end to police brutality, and to
expose and oppose the racism of the crimi-
nal justice system. One of the goals of the
march was to block buses of delegates on
inc way to the convention. and to sa

risks while attempting to avoid arrest:

The march was spirited, and included an -

elaborate puppet contingent made during
Active Resistance that included a headless,

many groups "were wine o take More

Photo By John Penley

said things like, “I really just want to save
the world for white men” above the heads
of antis. One man was wearing a T-shirt
that said it all: “4,000 Kodak customers lost
to abortions each year.” The pro-choicers—
mostly young people including groups from
Refuse and Resist! and Anti-Racist Action—
ended up venting their anger by chasing
antis around the museum.

Clinic defense in Chicago was better
organized than in San Diego. With good
surveillance information, ten to fifteen
activists were able to reach the clinic that
the antis had chosen to attack before the
antis got there. When the antis got there,
they ran across the parking lot, but pro-
choice activists were able to keep the clinic
open. Then the cops showed up, removed
the clinic defenders, and allowed the antis
to move in and block the clinic for hours.
The police lied and said that the clinic
owner hadn't asked them to remove the
antis.

The owner then made a statement that
there would be no abortions performed that
day. The antis declared victory and left. The

i di ing for reproduc m

snowed up for appointments while the clin-
ic was blocked. One was so frustrated that
she cried and then left. Another stayed and
was continually taunted by antis.

More anarchists at the Not On The Guest List demonstration

thirty-foot “tower of corporate greed”
pulling the strings of puppets Clinton and
Dole. As the marchers passed a cluster of
housing projects, people from the projects
enthusiastically joined, identifying with the
group's issues. When the march got close to
the convention center, it was blocked from
going further by police. People stayed in
the street and ended up delaying delegate
buses for an hour with no arrests. Native
American musicians played and anarchists
lit a bonfire, and people enjoyed the festival
atmosphere.

Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition
rented the Field Museum to court anti-
choice Democrats. About 50 reproductive
freedom activists came to give the antis a
hard time, carrying thought bubbles that

Chicago police were on their best behavior
towards demonstrators, cops were unable to
put their violent past behind them at this
convention. The police raid of Active
Resistance (see sidebar this page) is an omi-
nous example of the repression that is
increasing these days, with the Anti-
Terrorist Act and the erosion of due process
for people accused of breaking the law.
When anarchists organize ourselves effec-
tively, we are a threat to the government
and will be treated as such. It is hard to be
prepared for this kind of attack, even with
good security like at Active Resistance. In
repressive times like these, we need to keep
working hard to build a strong movement
that can withstand attacks and effective-
ly go on the offensive.*

NYC's Contract for Slave Labor

(Continued from page 1)

the program for two years. I had a spark of
hope when [Mayor] Giuliani said he was
going to hire 100 WEP workers into the
jobs they were doing. But that wasn't me.”

The fact that Stewart wasn't offered one
of those jobs is not surprising. A hundred
jobs doesn't come close to meeting the
needs of the 34,000 WEP workers already
working for the City. Giuliani is taking
advantage of an abundant, cheap labor
supply—why create real jobs when you can
get the work done almost for free? In the
past two years, while WEP has exploded,
the City has cut over 20,000 unionized city
jobs through attrition and severance buyout
packages. There is more to come; over
100,000 WEP workers are expected by next
year with no new jobs in sight.

Ironically, WEP is considered a national
model, especially since the passage of wel-
fare reform this summer. The new federal
law, formally known as the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
(PRA), ends the guaranteed Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (AFDC) and limits
funds by creating block grants to states.
PRA imposes:strict work requirements: to
receive a cash grant, recipients must partic-
ipate in community service within two
months and work within two years. Soon
these requirements will mount to 30 hours
of work per week, affecting millions nation-
wide.

These changes have not been taking
place in a vacuum. In fighting welfare
reform, groups across the country desper-
ately organized to challenge the conven-
tional wisdom about welfare: women on
welfare do work, they don’t have kids for
the extra $30 a month, and the way to
improve welfare is not to destroy it. Groups
of welfare warriors (women activists on
welfare) around the US began to capture
some of the spotlight. They held demonstra-
tions, published newsletters, conducted let-
ter-writing campaigns, media campaigns
and engaged in civil disobedience.

A ALE BACK

8

passage of the law, the fight continues. A
striking example is the effort organized in
response to New York City's workfare pro-
gram. Organizers and WEP workers have
come together to form WEP Workers
Together! (WWT!) a quasi-union of people
on welfare. WWT! is using a model of orga-
nizing which attacks WEP through its
grassroots: the WEP workers themselves.

WEP Workers Together!, which mobilized
the Labor Day Parade contingent, was initi-
ated by the Community Action Project
(CAP) of the Urban Justice Center,
Community Voices Heard (CVH), and the
Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC). Each has its
own history and perspective.

CAP began as a leadership development
institute of homeless and formerly homeless
people on welfare. The group knew that
people needed real jobs, that workfare
needed to be abolished, and that they
should organize among WEP workers to
accomplish their goals.

CVH, a group of activist women on wel-
fare in New York City, realized that coming
WEP requirements for AFDC recipients are
a threat to their families and to their
futures.

The Fifth Avenue Committee, with a long
history of tenant organizing, wanted to

‘to peer -

address tenants’ concerns beyond housing.

“WEP was a crisis for people,” according to
Benjamin Dulchin, Director of Community
Organizing at FAC. “We started meeting
with WEP workers on their lunch hours and
had a huge response. People became ani-
mated and anxious to do something.”
Brenda Stewart, a vocal member of WWT!,
had already been talking union among her
coworkers. “There was nobody to speak up
for us. Then WWT! came along.” Suddenly
there was a place to join forces with others.

The goal of WWT!’s organizing is there-
fore very simple: more jobs. More specifi-
cally, the goal is to create permanent jobs
directed at chronically unemployed people,
as Lisa Daugaard, Director of the
Community Organizing Project at UJC
explains. WWT!'s strategy is still in devel-
opment, but seems to be evolving into a
process of outreach, education, mobiliza-
tion, and action—in other words, building a
movement. The potential is huge; by the
time 100,000 WEP workers are pushed into
the system, they will comprise half the

ing a presence and, as Daugaard suggests,
“by becoming an implicit threat,” a move-
ment of WEP workers aims to become a
force in the creation of public policy. While
the ultimate goal is to create jobs and elim-
inate WEP, interim demands to increase
WEP workers’ status as workers might
include: job creation and retention policies,
safety and health training and protections,
real job training and placement, and
exemptions from WEP for education.

The three support organizations have
agreed that people receiving public assis-
tance are to be the members and leaders of
WWT! Leaders are in the making: members
make presentations, engage in outreach,
consult on strategy, and are encouraged to
take on responsibilities such as talking to
the press and managing public actions. A
joint committee of paid organizers and peo-
ple on public assistance creates proposals,
but final decisions are made by WWT! as a
whole and only people on welfare can vote.
“The organizations that started this are
really just there for support. They are
putting the decisions in WEP workers’
court,” Brenda Stewart explains.

A theme echoed by all WWT! members
interviewed was the importance of letting
people on welfare know they have a voice.
“No matter what section of life they are in,

By A LovE AND RAGE MEMBER, HAMILTON, ONT.

ith the expected Ontario Cabinet
W irer now over, and as the
Social Services Portfolio passes

over from the often bumbling Minister,
David Tsubouchi, to his Parliamentary
Assistant, Janet Eckner (who is widely held
to have been the real initiator of much of
the drastic changes on Welfare) one thing is
hotly expected. “Workfare” will officially
be “phased in” as of September 1. Officially
but not really. The Conservative govern-
ment’s “Workfare” plan, awarded to 15 ini-
tial “first sites,” of which Hamilton is one,
lacks any clear plan for implementation.
Though the government is carefully admit-
ting to nothing, they would like to see

workfare implemented in areas such as land
upkeep, day-care and health care support-
ing roles; all areas with unionized work
forces. It is also anticipated that agencies
such as the United Way, the umbrella for
hundreds of charities, will manage the
“Workfare” program. But seemingly no one
is poised to administer the program.

Should this, then, be seen as a reprieve?
Not if the Ontario Government can help it.
With no firm “workfare” structure to put in
place at its deadline, the Tory government
has firm plans on one thing, its punishment
for not participating.

The penalty for welfare recipients’ first
refusal is no benefits for three months; after
that the sentence is six months without any

they count,” says Wendell Ortiz, a member
of CAP and WWT! “WEP workers are stig-
matized,” Stewart adds. “They are disré-
spected on the job. Their spirit and their
motivation is crushed.” Her message to
other WEP workers is conveyed by her
example and her encouragement, “WEP
workers should be treated with respect and
recognized for their work.”

SPREADING THE NEWS

LaDon James points to the lack of informa-
tion among WEP workers. “People don't
understand the issues. They don't know
their rights; they don't know the impact of
the welfare reform bill.” James conducts
community forums, teach-ins, and helps
create fact sheets through CVH. She also
organizes on CUNY campuses among low-
income students fighting for their right to
education. For example, WEP hours severe-
ly conflict with class schedules. “The argu-
ment isn't that people shouldn't work, most
students work. The issue is that they need

01 e employed by the, City. . Jn, creat-... access to education. 1f.1.don’t have an edu--

cation, where am I going to be? How can I
teach my children?”

A second theme was the desire for real
work. Wendell Ortiz had his eye on a job
training program that would result in a job
„paying $15 to $20 per hour. There was no
exemption from WEP, however. Stewart’ s

goal is equally simple—"to have a job to.

care for myself and my family with a pen-
sion for some security later on.” She has
been putting out resumes but “no one’s hir-
ing.”

With over 100 members and growing,
outreach is a major focus. WWT! is model-
ing itself on a union, with WEP workers
who identify themselves as shop stewards
at their job sites. Members are reaching out
to other WEP workers by handing out pam-
phlets, buttons, and meeting notices at their
WEP placements and at welfare offices.
WWT! members talk to people constantly,
asking about their concerns, educating
them about their rights, and inviting them
to participate in the union. The Parks and
Recreation Department has over 6,000 WEP
workers already and has become the only
placement for new WEP workers. WWT!
may soon focus its outreach there.

Stewart's effort has been paying off;
WEP workers at her site wear the buttons
and a few have come to WWT! meetings.

money on which to live. This, quite simply,
is an impossible situation. It will be impossi-
ble to live that long without meeting the
needs of food, shelter and clothing.
Therefore people will be left to meet these
needs one way or another. With the dismis-
sive attitudes of the ruling Tory government
toward the truths behind unemployment and
crime, they sit (and all of us with them) on
the brink of the two colliding in an explo-
sive fashion. While the present program
looks unmanaged, the future, for them, is
looking increasingly unmanageable.

All of this we expect. A ready-made
punishment for a program that doesn't
exist shows us once more the government's
intentions for its poorest citizens.*k

The City, however, has begun cracking
down on this activity. Some WEP workers
have been told that they are not allowed to
wear the buttons (which say “JOBS, not
WEP”) at their placements. In fact, Stewart
was mysteriously dropped from the WEP
program. Although she says she cannot
speculate on whether her organizing activi-
ty caused her to be singled out, she said
that she has worn her button and has not
kept her activities a secret,

To develop its presence, WWT! is ‘aking
action. First, WWT! has already engaged in
its first public action by marching with
Communication Workers of America Local
1180 in the Labor Day Parade. Second,
WWT! is in the process of planning a work
slowdown.

WEP SANCTIONS A THREAT

Stewart's major concern is getting enough
people to participate. “A lot of them are
fearful of losing their benefits, especially
because the news media is involved,” she
said. Diane Reese, a member of CVH and
mother of three, was disappointed by the
small turnout at the parade, since 75 people
attended the last WWT! meeting. She cited
people's fear of being sanctioned as keeping
them from coming out in public. Sanctions

are the administrative method of cutting

people off welfare for infringements of
inflexible WEP regulations. She said
lawyers had assured the group that organiz-
ing activities could not be used against
them as long as they were not on WEP
time. This reassured Reese but there is a
chance that some the newer participants
will be scared into silence.

Reese is insistent in her effort to get peo-
ple to unite their voices against WEP: Most
people she knows in WEP are cleaning
offices—their bathrooms to be more exact.
“The [cleaning] solutions are so concentrat-
ed they are getting sick,” she said. “But they
can't find work so they are making the best
of it.”

Dismantling workfare and fighting for
real jobs will be a tough battle that could
take many years. It will also take a nation-
wide movement. Some: seeds have already
been planted; in the process of organizing
against welfare reform, welfare rights
groups across the country have established
communication and action links between
them. The movement could also expand by
building bridges with unions, workers'
rights groups, living wage campaigns, and
others. For all of these, WWT! serves as an
important organizing model. Workfare
workers are due real wages, benefits and
protections for their labor. The courageous
efforts of WWT! make it possible that work-
fare workers will ultimately prevail.

In New York City: If you are on welfare or in WEP
and would like to get involved in WWT!, or if you
know people on welfare or in WEP and would like
to help them get involved, please call the Urban
Justice Center, 21 2-229-2080 x315 or the Fifth
Avenue Committee, 718-857-2990.

Thanks to all the members of WWT! who
generously contributed to this article!

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 15

that critique. Neo-liberalism is

Encuentro

(Continued from page 1)

WHO WAS THERE

And the people came. The largest contin-
gents (up to 400 people cach) were from
Mexico, Spain, Italy and France. The
United States and Germany each had
about 200 people. Sizable contingents
came from many Latin American coun-
tries. Smaller contingents came from the
rest of Europe and countries in Africa and
Asia. The under-representation of Africa
and Asia was the most glaring weakness of
the Encuentro, Mauritania, Senegal, Zaire,
the Canary Islands, and South Africa were
the only African countries represented.
Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, the Philippines,
and Japan were the only Asian countries
represented.

The participants in the Encuentro could
be divided into three general categories of
roughly equal size. The first group consisted
of traditional solidarity activists, people
who had (or would have if they had been
old enough) participated in the Central
America, South Africa or other solidarity
movements in the 1980s. The second group
consisted of members of independent orga-
nizations of students, workers, peasants,
women or indigenous people. The third
group was the anti-authoritarians: anar-
chists, syndicalists, autonomist marxists,
and others.

While at least a couple of the European
Communist Parties were represented, the
Encuentro as a whole was remarkably free
of the various parties of the left. Any repre-
sentatives of Trotskyist or Maoist groups
present kept their heads low. Additionally
there was a bus full of Rainbow Gathering
people from Mexico and the US, a handful

of celebrities, some international media,

and some folks who just got swept into the
whole thing accidentally. While all ages
were represented, most participants were in
their 20s or early 30s.

AGAINST NEOLIBERALISM

The Zapatistas have articulated a critique of
what they call “neo-liberalism” and the
Encuentro was organized on th

widely used in the United States and conse-
quently it is frequently misunderstood.
Neo-liberalism refers to the policies of aus-
terity (budget cuts, lower wages, etc.) and of
international free trade (NAFTA and similar
treaties) that have been pursued with
increasing intensity since the early 1970s.
Neo-liberalism takes its name from the eco-
nomic policies of England in the 19th cen-
tury that are known as “classical liberal-
ism.” Neo-liberalism doesn’t have much to
do with what is known as “liberalism” in
the United States except that many liberals
have shown their true stripes by supporting
what are basically right-wing policies. Neo-
liberalism is basically the latest stage in the
development of international capitalism. It
represents a renewed assault on the gains of

poor, working class, and oppressed peoples
around the world. It is a rejection of the
social welfare and economic development
policies pursued from the end of WWII to
the early- 1970s.

THE SET UP

Participants in the Encuentro gathered in
San Cristobal de las Casas, the colonial cap-
ital of Chiapas, where we boarded buses
bound for Oventic, a Zapatista-controlled
village. Oventic was the site of the welcom-
ing ceremony and dancing into the night.
The next morning those not staying in
Oventic boarded buses for one of the other

e basis of

four host villages, Each
village was the site of
one of the five mesas
(tables) dedicated to
discussing political,
economic, social, cul-
tural, and indigenous
issues respectively. |
participated in the
smallest of the mesas,
the one devoted to the
struggles of indigenous
peoples. Each mesa
was further divided
into four sub-mesas,
and it was in the sub-
mesas that we had
three solid days of
political discussions.
These discussions were
organized to produce a
collective document
which, gathered to-
gether with the docu-
ments of the other sub-
mesas and mesas,
would constitute a sort
of political declaration
of the Encuentro.

The process of developing the document
was imperfectly democratic. A draft docu-
ment was presented on the first day of the
sub-mesa meetings. This was followed by a
series of presentations by anybody who
wanted to speak on the theme of the sub-
mesa, which were in turn followed by a
general discussion of the draft document
and the presentations. A committee made
up more or less of one member of each
national delegation present was then
responsible for synthesizing the discussion
and rewriting the draft in time for the next
day’s meeting.

Each sub-mesa had a different degree of
democracy and respect for the contribu-
tions of everyone present. There were a
few rebellions against heavy-handed com-
mittee members and at least one sub-mesa
split into two, but given the circumstances

THE SITUATION IN MEXICO

The Encuentro took place in the context of a
deepening political crisis in Mexico: After
several false starts it appears that the
Zapatistas have jump-started a broad-based
organization in Mexican civil society in the
form of the FZLN. Significant elements of
the Mexican left have joined the FZLN and
seem to have sincerely embraced important
elements of the EZLN’s implicit and explicit
critiques of the authoritarianism of the left.
The FZLN explicitly eschews participation in
electoral politics and excludes elected offi-
cials from membership. The FZLN only
offers an organizational framework for the
spreading social struggles of workers, peas-
ants, students, and indigenous communities
across Mexico. Representatives from many
of those struggles were present at the
Encuentro and their stories conveyed the

The most effective way to act in
solidarity with the Zapatista

cS

j
Q A

0

olution is

ae
WOT

make revolution

the process was remarkably participatory.
Each day’s discussion began with the seat-
ing of the members of the Zapatista com-
mandancia who, aside from brief opening
and closing remarks, generally observed
the proceedings in silence. A considerable
amount of leadership came from members
of the newly-formed FZLN (Zapatista
National Liberation Front), a broad, newly-
formed organization united around the
political demands of the EZLN, which also
took responsibility for much of the logisti-
cal work of moving 4,000 people into and
out of Zapatista territory and from village
to village.

After three days of mesa meetings we all
reconvened in the village of La Realidad
where, after some inspirational speeches by
some of the Zapatista leadership, the final
document was presented to the assembled
crowd. As at most conferences, much of the
really important work took place outside of
the official proceedings. International
friendships were formed; ad hoc meetings
of every sort were called; contact lists were

‘gathered; books, videos, and periodicals

were exchanged; we ate and danced and
sang together and in a hundred ways peo-
ple developed the face to face relations that
must be the foundation of any serious
international revolutionary undertaking.

PAGE 16 + LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

image of Mexico as a bubbling cauldron of

social conflict. Trains are being looted for
grain by residents of shanty-towns, estates
of the rich are being overrun, revolutionar-
ies are quietly taking over village govern-
ments and preparing for a broader conflict,
peasant organizations are becoming increas-
ingly militant. At the same time US military
aid is being dramatically stepped up, the
army is being professionalized, and huge
sectors of the country are being militarized
in the name of fighting drug traffickers.

In addition to the conditions particular to
Mexico, the Zapatistas seem to have identi-
fied some problems confronting national
liberation movements in general that have
influenced their strategic approach. A half-
century of experience in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America suggests that revolutionary
movements that remain confined within
national borders have been unable to
escape the exploitative logic of the interna-
tional market. National liberation move-
ments that make a bid for state power may
be able to carry out certain reforms (land
redistribution, literacy drives, building
health clinics) but they are compelled to
squeeze every cent of profit from their own
workers and peasants in order to finance
the development their countries so desper-
ately need. In this manner the leaders of the
revolution become a new capitalist class.
The Zapatistas are responding to this dilem-
ma in two ways that depart significantly
from the practice of previous revolutionary
movements.

First, they have explicitly declared that
they are not aiming at the direct seizure of
state power. Instead they are seeking to cre-
ate sufficient space for new popular forces
to emerge. The Zapatistas know that, in
spite of their high level of popular support,
they are the democratically chosen repre-
sentatives of only a small section of
Mexican society, the mainly indigenous
peasants of the Lacandona. A truly democ-
ratic transformation of Mexican society will
require that other sectors develop their own
democratic institutions of counter-power.
The Mexican state might reach a point of
crisis where it is possible for a small group
like the Zapatistas to seize power, but the
historical experience of previous revolu-

around the world. Concre

tions suggests that such a seizure of power
would short-circuit rather than accelerate
the broad development of the democratic
self-organization of the oppressed and
exploited of Mexican society. This renunci-
ation of the seizure of state power implies a
prolonged period of dual power in which
zones of rebellion co-exist with the
Mexican state. It is unclear as to whether
such a situation can be maintained for as
long as it will take to implement the
Zapatistas’ strategy, but for anti-authoritar-
ians it is one of the most exciting things
about the Zapatistas’ approach.

The second new aspect of the Zapatistas’
strategy is the form of international soli-
darity that they are demanding.
Traditionally, movements in solidarity with
various national liberation struggles have
taken all of their cues from those struggles.
In contrast to this the Zapatistas seem to be

deliberately encouraging a high level of

autonomy on the part of groups acting in
solidarity with them.

More importantly, they are encouraging
solidarity activists to develop methods of
struggling directly against the neo-liberal
economic re;

Zapatista revolution is to make

expressed in the Zapatistas’ proposal to th
Encuentro that the various Zapati
Solidarity Committees around the world be
transformed into Committees Against Neo-
Liberalism and for Humanity.

REVOLUTIONARY ACCOMPLISHMENT

The Lacandona jungle is one of the most
desperately poor regions in the Americas.
Most of the current residents of the
Lacandona have moved there in the past
thirty years after being forced off their
ancestral lands in other parts of Chiapas.
They have cleared mountainsides in order
to grow small fields of corn. Most of the
jungle is accessible only by treacherous dirt
roads. Access to medical care, education,
clean water or electricity is practically
non-existent.

The ‘North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) threatened this precari-
ous existence on two fronts. First, it com-
pelled the Mexican government to rewrite
the Mexican constitution to eliminate the
protection of communal lands (called eji-
dos) from purchase (or theft) by ranchers
and foreign companies. Second, NAFTA
eliminates the price supports for Mexican-
grown corn. Without these price supports
the peasants of the Lacandona can't hope to
compete with giant multi-national agricul-
tural corporations like Daniel Archer-
Midlands or Cargill. It was in the face of
this imminent destruction that the Zapatista
uprising was organized.

Once the Zapatista uprising had secured
a cease-fire and effective control of much
of the Lacandona jungle the Zapatistas set
out to construct a huge open-air meeting
place that they named Aguascalientes, after
the site of Mexico’s 1917 constitutional
convention. In February 1995 the Mexican
Army launched an offensive against the
Zapatistas. One of their main targets was
the Aguascalientes. The Army completely
destroyed this symbol of the capacity of
Mexico’s poorest inhabitants to build a
truly democratic society.

The Zapatistas responded to this attack

(Continued on next page)

sta

a >

ores

EPR Spreads Armed Struggle in Mexico-
But Where Do They Want to Lead It?

5 By GENE, NY ABC
he renewed armed struggle in the
[eons this time from the Popular
Revolutionary Army (EPR—Ejército
Revolutionario Popular), and the withdraw-
al from negotiations by the Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN), threatens
the governability of the Mexican state. The

possibility of wide-spread revolutionary
activity has increased as all kinds of resis-

Encuentro

(Continued from previous page)

by building not one but five more
Aguascalientes in five villages scattered
throughout the jungle. The construction of
these Aguascalientes is a particularly
impressive accomplishment in light of the
desperate need for building schools and
clinics. Since their construction the
Zapatistas have been using the
Aguascalientes to host various gatherings
including a Continental Encuentro and a
summit of Indigenous peoples.

For eight days the Zapatistas provided
transportation, clean and healthy food,
shelter, showers, clean water, and meeting
spaces for 4,000 guests in a region where
none of those things had previously been
available to the people that lived there. This
accomplishment points to the profound
capacities that even the poorest people have
to transform their living conditions when
they take matters into their own hands. It
also points to the Zapatistas’ understanding
that such gains cannot be expected to last
unless the democratic accomplishments of
the Zapatistas are projected not just onto
the rest of Mexico but also the rest of the
world. More than any political proclama-
tions or revolutionary communiqués, it is
the actual material changes that the
Zapatistas have made in the lives of the

people that reveal the revolutionary power `

of their ideas.

SOME PROBLEMS

_This is not to say that the Encuentro was

without its problems. The road to the new
society is bound to have few potholes and
detours. Some of the problems were thrown
up by the Mexican government. Soldiers at
military checkpoints. frequently stopped the
caravans of buses that carried us from one
village to the next. Traffic on the road to La
Realidad, the site of the last days of the

tance spreads across Mexico. Mass repres-
sion is the government’s only response.
While scores have been arrested as suspect-
ed members of the EPR, the guerrilla group
claims that only two of those are actual
combatants and that the rest are innocent.
The Federal Army, Judicial Police, and
the police forces of seven state govern-
ments are engaged in massive maneuvers to
hunt for members of the EPR and to repress

Encuentro, was stopped when a small
bridge over a gully was removed. But this
obstacle became a metaphor for the whole
Encuentro when people from at least a
dozen countries poured out of their buses to
rebuild the bridge (actually to drag it back
into place). The night before the first day of
the Encuentro, peasants in the state of
Oaxaca blockaded the main highway lead-
ing to Chiapas in protest against the poli-
cies of the government. Ironically the first
vehicles caught up in the blockade were a
caravan of buses going to the Encuentro.
There were also some political controver-
sies. Many members of the French delega-
tion objected to the invitation extended to
Danielle Mitterand (wife of the now-
deceased former French President) to speak
to the Encuentro. German feminists object-
ed to the inclusion of women’s concerns
under the broad category of “the excluded,”
because they felt it marginalized discussion
on half the world’s population.
_ More significant than the actual contro-
versies was the enthusiasm with which they
were picked up by the capitalist media
looking for an opportunity to ridicule the
Encuentro. The disproportionate representa-
tion of the Western European countries
resulted in their domination of several
important discussions. One Mexican partici-
pant said of this “The gringos are arrogant,
but at least they know it’s a problem. The
Germans don’t even know.”

FROM SOLIDARITY TO RESISTANCE

The Encuentro was undoubtedly many
things to many people. And this is clearly
an intention of the Zapatistas. They have
cast their net broadly and gathered together
a politically diverse bunch of folks ranging
from revolutionary anarchists to wide-eyed
solidarity activists to social democrats. All
of us bring our strengths and weaknesses to
the mix and the Zapatistas know there
aren't enough of any single group to build
a serious worldwide movement. But the
openness of the Encuentro should not allow
people to think that the Zapatistas them-

all movements against the government.
They are moving against everyone; legal
organizations like the Zapatista National
Liberation Front (FZLN) and peasant orga-
nizations in the Southern Sierra; as well as
the Zapatistas in Chiapas, who report mak-

_ ing eye contact with the Federales from

their defensive positions in the hills
increasingly since the EPR attacks began.

BASELESS ACCUSATIONS?

The government claims that the EPR, along
with an allied group, the PDRP (Partido
Democratico Revolutionario Popular) is the
“armed wing” of another group, the
Procup-PDLP (Partido Obrero Clandestino
Union del Pueblo—Partido de los Pobres, or
Clandestine Workers Party Union of the
People—Party of the Poor). The Procup is a
Marxist-Leninist organization that surfaced
in the early 1970s and has a history of vio-
lent action. Its Local Construction
Committees proclaimed in April 1993, from
the state of Guerrero, a strategy of
“Prolonged Popular War” towards: socialist
revolution that entails building the party
while clandestine forces build an army of
the people capable of seizing state power.
The immediate activities would be retribu-
tion for crimes against the people, military
aggressions and abuses, and armed self-
defense against police.

Some of Procup's members are currently

selves have no politics. Rather, their politics
start from an understanding that until now
everything else has failed and therefore
there is a need to profoundly rethink the
revolutionary project.

The collapse of the Soviet Empire and the
ensuing collapse of what was left of the
international left has created a unique
opportunity for this rethinking to take place.
The Zapatistas understand that they have an
important role to play in this process, but if
they are to play such a role it is necessary to
break with the old patterns of international
solidarity work. The call to transform the
Committees of Solidarity into Committees
Against Neoliberalism and for Humanity is
in effect a call to move from carrying the
banner of the Zapatistas to trying to be like

‘them. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking

to the mountains and picking up guns.
What it does mean is finding concrete ways
to struggle against neo-liberalism however
it manifests itself in different places.

WHAT WE STAND FOR

The Encuentro produced a lengthy docu-
ment (or more accurately a collection of
documents) that seeks to articulate the
basis for a new politics in a new period. It
is a long and rambling affair with all the
idiosyncrasies one might expect from a
document produced under such circum-
stances. Undoubtedly it contains many
points worth challenging. But it is
nonetheless a very important thing. On
many crucial points it breaks with the
whole authoritarian tradition that has so
dominated revolutionary thinking for most
of this century. It should be available in
English very soon, and hopefully revolu-
tionary anarchists and any other activists
who are serious about finding a way out of
this very rotten new world order will read
it, discuss it and respond to it.

A NEW INTERNATIONAL?

The call to come to the Encuentro spoke of
the formation of an “International of

in prison after a series of arrests in the
carly (90s when a number of its members
were captured “and tortured. The
Procup/PDLP Political Prisoners Collective,
who are being held at the Reclusorio

Preventativo Norte in Mexico City, in June

of 1993 called for: “fortifying and consoli-
dating the vanguard party, the army of the
people and a powerful political mass move-
ment, the basic elements that will unify the
struggle of the Mexican people for political

liberty and socialism.”

ARE THEY POPULAR?
ARE THEY REVOLUTIONARY?
ARE THEY AN ARMY?

At a press conference, government officials
claimed that Procup-PDLP documents iden-
tify as their “mass fronts” the Organization
of Campesinos of the Southern Sierra
(OCSS), whose members were massacred on
their way to an organizational function,
and at whose commemoration the EPR first
appeared, as well as the Emiliano Zapata
Eastern Democratic Front of Mexico
(FDOMEZ) and the Popular Democratic *
National Front (FNDP).

The government’s assessment is of
course always suspect. They reiterate
the argument of the ex-governor of
Guerrero, Rubén Figueroa Alcocer, who

(Continued to page 18)

Hope.” The document developed at the
Encuentro and the coordination involved in
making it happen and in getting through it
certainly have laid the foundation for some
new sort of international organization. It is
unclear what steps will be taken to trans-
form the various Zapatista solidarity groups
and other forces that came to the Encuentro
into the Intercontinental Network Against
Neo-Liberalism and for Humanity that was
proclaimed from the stage in La Realidad.

What is clear is the existance of a pro-
found potential to build a broad new inter-
national organization on a foundation of
revolutionary and anti-authoritarian princi-
ples. Such a project would not be free of
serious contradictions and can only be real-
ized if all parties are prepared to approach
the work in-a serious spirit of non-sectari-
anism. This goes for revolutionary anar-
chists as much as anybody else.

NEXT YEAR IN EUROPE

As the Encuentro was coming to an end it
was announced that the next Encuentro
would take place next year, probably in
November, somewhere in Europe. This will
be an important test of whether the spirit of
unity that suffused the first Encuentro can
be maintained outside of the Lacandona
jungle. There was a European Continental
Encuentro this past spring in Berlin that
was by all accounts a success. Holding the
next Encuentro in Europe should also make
it easier to get broader participation from
Africa and Asia.

The system we are up against is not con-
fined by any national borders; and no seri-
ous effort to overthrow this system can
limit itself to functioning within the con-
fines of any single nation state. There is a
crying need to develop an internationally-
coordinated resistance to neo-liberalism. It
will not be an easy thing to build a new
international and we should expect a lot of
twists and turns along the way. But it is
necessary and it needs the active support
of every serious anti-authoritarian revolu-
tionary on Earth.*

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND RAGE e PAGE 17

Members of the EPR during an-August interview with La Jornada

(Continued from page 17)

tried to use the spectre of an armed guer-
rilla to bring repression down on the OCSS
and even blame them for the massacre. But
Procup/PDLP documents and current events
seem to indicate a connection. Most likely
Procup/PDLP militants are involved in a
number of legal organizations where they
have been recruiting for the EPR.

In fact, the EPR’s own statements are the
best proof that there is a connection
between the Procup and the EPR. Aside

described them
as follows: “In
the past days we
have become
aware of various
terrorist attacks
against civilian
objectives in
diverse parts of
4 the country.
Said attacks are
attributed to
| members of our
Í EZLN. The
Indigenous
Revolutionary
Clandestine
Committee-
Gene. ail
Command of the
EZLN declares
that Zapatista
troops combat
the police and the Federal Army and not
against the parking lots of commercial cen-
ters. No civilian objective will suffer military
attacks on the part of the Zapatista troops.”
The EZLN again criticized the Procup
after they circulated a document in which
they implied that the EZLN is one of their
“belligerent groups,” and that the recent
events in Mexico were part of Procup’s
national plan, of which they were the van-
guard. In an interview in May of 1994
members of Amor y Rabia (Love and Rage,
Mexico), myself and others asked Marcos,
“Is this true, do you have some connection?”

The appearance of the EPR and the government’s use
of them as an excuse for repression may make the kind
of open dialogue and communications the Zapatistas
are encouraging more difficult to accomplish.

from now claiming Procup actions as their
own, the slogans in the EPR's June 28
Aguas Blancas Manifesto are very similar to
the slogans contained in the communiqués
written in the early ‘90s by their Guerrero
Local Construction Committees and their
political prisoners.

The government has portrayed the
Procup and, by extension, the EPR, as more
like a terrorist group. than a traditional

the Red Army Fraction (RAF) of Germany.)
This assessment is backed up by some in
the Mexican left and by the Procup’s own
history. Operating in small very secretive
cells, their past actions include a series of
bombings of the Mexico City offices of
international corporations, including
Citibank, Nissan, Sony and IBM. The
Government suspects the Procup of the
1994 kidnapping of Alfredo Harp Helu, then
the chairman of Mexico's largest bank. Mr.
Harp was released after two months when
his family paid a $30 million ransom.

Of course this “terrorist” description of
the EPR is the same one the government
used to describe the Zapatistas in the begin-
ning. According to Subcomandante Marcos
of the EZLN, “it is laughable that yesterday
they ran over each other to call us ‘terror-
ists’ without a social base and. product of a
‘foreign’ implantation of elements of radical
university groups with a ‘70s ideology. Now
these same people run over themselves to
say that you are the ‘terrorists’ and the
EZLN has an ‘authentic social base.” (EZLN
communiqué fo EPR, August 29)

In a recent press conference an EPR
leader expressed frustration that the EZLN
had yet to acknowledge their actions during
January 1994. At the time Procup claimed
responsibility for some urban bombings and
the EZLN did in fact acknowledge them.
They distanced: themselves from them and

EPR member during an August interview with La Jornada

~ case o;
guerrilla army. (Officials compared them to Trotsky

Marcos replied “The left is very closed-
minded. They say, ‘well these people don’t
draw from any known ideologies, so they
must not have one. | will lend them one.’ Or
they say, ‘They are good people but they
don’t know what they want. I’m going to
tell them what they want.’ Or, ‘They’re good
people but they need a leader. I'll be: their
leader.’ This is the reality not just in the
rl with a

yists

EZLN needs... ME! 4

Some on the left (ex-guerrillas and com-
munists) described Felipe Martínez Soriano,
who the government believes is Procup's
ideological pioneer, as “an embittered
leader long ostracized by other revolution-
aries for his violent sectarianism,” but they
rejected the government's belief that
Soriano was giving orders from prison. The
ex-head of the Communist Party, Arnaldo
Martínez Verdugo, who was kidnapped by
Procup in a dispute over money, accused
Felipe Martínez Soriano of having “a primi-
tive vision, that all problems are going to
be solved through violence.” Soriano was
convicted of being the intellectual author of
the 1990 murder of two security guards of
the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. The
shooting took place right after Procup pro-
paganda was delivered to the guards and
when they approached the messenger. (NY
Times, 9/5/96)

Whatever the history of the Procup, EPR
communiqués claim (and the government
and leftists agree) that the EPR is a coali-
tion of a dozen or so small clandestine
groups that allied themselves with the
Procup in 1994. Many of these groups
have a long history of clandestine struggle
and can trace their roots to groups that
took up arms following the October 2,
1968 massacre in Mexico City. EPR com-
mander mo no denied, though, that the
Procup is the domi-
nant force in the EPR,
saying: “While the
government spent
many years trying to
eliminate the Procup,
they allowed the other
thirteen groups who
form the EPR to slowly
consolidate.”

The EPR's recent
offensive looked more
like the work of a
guerrilla army than the
sporadic commando
į actions, bombings and
kidnappings of the
Procup or the RAF.

All this may account
for the EZLN’s delin-
-eation between the
Procup, whose actions
they have criticized,

PAGE 18 + LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

¡oda ae paign, gatto cks an:

and the EPR, which they refuse to call “ter-
rorist.” Referred to as a “guerrilla of guerril-
las,” a list was published in La Jornada
identifying 13 groups as the ones that dis-
appeared to form first the EPR then the
PDPR.

JUST HOW POPULAR IS THE EPR?

Many have observed that a high level-of
coordination and a network of supporters
was necessary for the EPR to carry out the
actions on the scale that they did. They
have support from poor rural communities
and some of the international left, and they
appear to be well-financed. Commander
Francisco said that the EPR’s military activ-
ities were financed by their social base, who
support them with food and clothing, but
he also took responsibility for the kidnap-
ping of members of the “oligarchy” but not
for all the kidnappings of which they are
accused. There is evidence that they have
been successful in recruiting frustrated and
desperate campesinos in a country where
many feel armed struggle is justified in the
face of continuing government corruption
and war on the poor.

THE RIVALRY THAT ISN'T

Mocking Marcos and the EZLN, EPR leaders
commented that you can’t “fight a revolu-
tion with poetry” and offered assistance to
the Zapatistas if they were to break off talks
with the government.

In the communiqué cutting off the dia-
logue with the government, the EZLN said
that:

“The appearance of the EPR has not
been read by the government as a new
and urgent call to open the spaces of
political participation, to end the
impunity and modify the political
economy. No, the government has
read the appearance of the EPR as a
possibility of laying out the trap of the
choice between the ‘good guerrilla’
and the ‘bad guerrilla’ in the negotia-
tion with the EZLN. Awaiting the logi-
cal demarcation between the EZLN
and the EPR, the government expects
that the Zapatistas ‘now’ accept any-
thing offered to them as well as
expecting that they doin in its cam-

mountains of the Ma neat
there is not a ‘good guerrilla’ nor a

The EPR’s own statements are the best proof of

liberty of the indigenous leaders who, in
these days, were gathering the opinions of
the communities.” And he questions the
motivations behind it, “Did you not know
we were in the midst of this process? Why
carry out a propaganda action in Chiapas if
you have already demonstrated your capac-
ity to move in other parts of Mexico? Was
this to prove you have sympathizers in the
zones where the EZLN is found? Have you
fallen into the trap of ‘rivalries’ promoted
by the government? Meanwhile the cost of
that action will not be paid by you, but by
the Zapatista indigenous communities (who
l will remind you, have undergone almost a
thousand days resisting with their armed
rebellion... and their poetry).”

IT'S NOT IN THE MASK

Marcos goes on to lay out the key differ-
ences etween the EZLN and the EPR:

“the difference is not what you
and others have insisted upon, that
you do not dialogue with the govern-
ment, that you do struggle for power
and that you have not declared war,
while we dialogue (attention: we do
this not only with the government but
in a much larger sense with national
and international civic society); we do
not struggle for power and we did
declare war on the Federal Army (a
challenge for which they will never
forgive us). The difference is that our
pelitical proposals are diametrically
different and this is evident in the dis-
course and practice of the two organi-
zations. Thanks to your appearance,
now many people can understand that
what makes us different from existing
political organizations is not the
weapons and the ski masks, but the
political proposals. We have carved
out a new and radical path. It is so
new and radical that all the political
currents have criticized us and look at
us with boredom, including your-
selves. We are uncomfortable. Too
bad, this is the way of the Zapatistas.

“You struggle for power. We strug-

- gle for democracy, liberty and justice.
This is not the same thing, Though
you may be successful and conquer —
power, we will continue struggling for
liber and justice us doesing

— are and will ware sre
for democracy, liberty and justice” =

a connection between the Procup and the EPR.

“bad guerrilla”; there are rebel citizens
who have taken up arms because they
have no democratic spaces of peaceful
political participation and a social
base tired of bonanza declarations and
economic offerings and the constant
reality of misery. We are different
from the EPR, but we are not their
opposition.”

EZLN LETTER TO EPR

But in a communiqué to the EPR the EZLN
turned down their offer for help and articu-
lated the political differences between them.

“We do not need it, do not seek it and
do not want it ... Until now we are
happy not to owe any political organi-
zation, national or international, any-
thing. The support which we seek and
need, is that of national and interna-
tional civil society, their peaceful and
civic mobilizations is what we await.
Of the first, weapons and soldiers, we
have enough. Of the second, military
actions, we have the capacity we have
and this is enough. What we seek,
what we need and want is that all
those people without a party and
organization make agreements about
what they want and do not want and
become organized in order to achieve
it (preferably through civil and peace-
ful means), not to take power but to
exercise it.”

Tensions were stirred up between the rebel
groups when the EPR’s propaganda road-
blocks in Chiapas coincided with the end of
the EZLN consultation with their base.

In the same kite, Marcos describes the
EPR propaganda action in Chiapas as “use-
less and foolish to me in the best of circum-
stances and provocative in the worst sense.
This action occured during the end of our
consultation and jeopardized the lives and

The appearance of the EPR and the gov-
ernment’s use of them as an excuse for
repression may make the kind of open dia-
logue and communications the Zapatistas
are encouraging more difficult to accom-
plish. On the other hand, the Zapatista pull-
out from the negotiations and the threat of
war in Mexico may help mobilize their
forces and increase pressure to try to win
more concessions from the government.

For anti-authoritarians, it is more impor-
tant than ever to support the Zapatistas.
While both the EZLN and the EPR deny any
rivalry between them, the appearance of the
EPR gives us an opportunity to see compet-
ing ideologies in practice. We can already
see the way in which the EPR will be held to
standards set by the Zapatistas, on questions
such as their social base, the role of women,
etc., and how the actions of either group can
affect the other. The EPR's more traditional
Marxist-Leninist line is exactly what the
EZLN has gone to great pains to distance
itself from. The EZLN's more anti-authoritar-
lan approach, their creation of the FZLN, an
organization of non-party affiliated people,
their efforts in building a national and inter-
national dialogue and movement against
neoliberalism, and the EZLN's insistence that
it does not seek state power explain why it
has gained so much support and made it dif-
ficult for the forces of neoliberalism to
demonize and rid themselves of them. It also
explains the cool reception from much of the
traditional left, who have called the EZLN
“armed reformists,” lacking a program, party,
etc. With the EZLN out of negotiations and
ready to defend themselves against an
expected government attack and the EPR
fighting for socialist revolution it will be
interesting to see how events play out in
Mexico and in the international solidarity
movement that will grow in response to any
crisis.

If the Zapatistas do not resume negotia-
tions it could likely lead to war. A war in
which there are many players. Stay tuned.*

(Continued from page 8)

Under the KR regime, known as
Democratic Kampuchea (DK), Sihanouk was
kept in the palace under house arrest. In
December 1978, when the Vietnamese
launched their first major offensive, Pol

Public support for
forgiving the KR for-all
its atrocities, while
partially motivated by
fear of more violence
and a Buddhist dislike
of retribution, also
draws heavily on
nationalism.

Pot sent Sihanouk to the United Nations to
argue DK’s case. In 1982, Sihanouk’s forces
were part of a coalition government that
included the KR, and later in the decade,
Funcinpec «allied directly with the KR to
fight the Vietnamese. Sihanouk has also
maintained personal friendships with the
Chinese and North Korean governments
since the 1950s—Zhou Enlai of the Chinese
Community Party was his long-time
patron, and may have been pressured by
Pol Pot to encourage Sihanouk to unite
with the KR. Sihanouk still has North
Korean bodyguards: Over the years,
Sihanouk ‘has maintained some contacts
with the KR, and occasionally receives let-
ters from them about various issues, but has
always claimed that from 1970 onward,

(Continued from page 4)

themselves with Turkey, but now they are
openly pro-Hussein as well.

HOPES FOR A FREE KURDISTAN?

The cause of Kurdish independence has sus-
tained much damage over the last couple

they were only exploiting his name to gain
popular approval.

Whether or not this association should
tar him, it is clear that some of Cambodia’s
1970s mess is directly
tied to Sihanouk’s politi-
cal machinations. In the
late 1960s he made a
secret deal with the North
Vietnamese allowing
them to operate bases
along the Cambodian-
Vietnamese border. He
then turned around and
make a deal with the US,
allowing Nixon to bomb
those same bases, anger-
ing all sides, and provid-
ing an opening for Lon
Nol's coup in 1970.
When the coup occurred,
Sihanouk was on his way
home from a visit to
Moscow, and instead of
coming back to
Cambodia, went into
exile in Beijing.
Historians have argued
that it wasn’t actually a
very serious coup
attempt, but more of a warning to Sihanouk,
and so his going to Beijing was a serious
mistake. In his absence, Lon Nol was able to
seize power completely and allowed the US
a free hand to step up the bombing, which
increased popular support for the KR.

Given this background, it is no surprise
that the government pardoned Sary. Despite
appearances, debate on this point was more
about political maneuvering than serious
consideration of responsibility for one of
the most murderous regimes in history (up
to two million killed out of a population of
eight million).

Regrettably, still more factors come into
play. The KR has never been eee par-

KDP openly supported Saddam Hussein,
whose Anfal operations against the Kurds

“were “every bit as thorough and efficient in

their stages of execution as had been the
Nazi Holocaust against the Jews” (Lazier,
p.2). The two parties, now openly at war,
have ruined the only chance ever given to
the Kurds by the outside world. By acting
on the basis of self-interest and greed, the
two parties wrecked “free” Kurdistan and

Followers of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which has aligned with the Iraqi government

- then a the sympathy and s
and the West aia things went sour: The

a eS RS EA

tially due to the international weapons sup-
port they received in the-1980s from the
US, Thailand, and China, but there are also
deeper causes. Prejudice against the
Vietnamese is historical fact in Cambodia
and remains rampant. The KR have exploit-
ed it successfully since they first came to
power, when Cambodians feared that the
new Vietnamese government would take
over its neighbors. The Mekong Delta was

once part of Cambodia, and. the KR,- along

with many Cambodians, continues to insist.

that it is still Cambodian. In June,’ the KR
massacred 11 people in a fishing village in
western Cambodia. The foreign-owned

Phnom Penh Post was the only newspaper.

to report that it was a Vietnamese village;
and that the unit had walked uninterrupted
through several Cambodian villages to
reach it.

Public support for forgiving the KR for
all its atrocities, while partially motivatéd
by fear of more violence and a Buddhist
dislike of retribution, also draws heavily
on nationalism. After visiting the Killing
Fields on a recent trip to Cambodia, | said

‘their infighting has‘lost the Kurds much of

after the Gulf War. © 1) 08) he

In the long run, however, these develop-
ments may prove beneficial to the Kurdish
cause. First of all, “free Kurdistan was
never really free. It was weak and starving,
just as the allied powers 'had planned. The
US in particular used the safe haven concept
to keep Iraq weak. Never would: they allow
the region to become economically or politi-
cally feasible. A fledgling Kurdish state-in
northern Iraq would be seen as a threat to

to my Cambodian guide that it didn't seem
like justice had been done, and that it
seemed bizarre to even consider negotiat-
ing with the KR. He replied, “We are all
Khmers,” using the term for the
Cambodian ethnic group and language.
Ironically, most of the KR leadership had
internationalist roots, many rising through
the ranks of the French and the
Indochinese Communist parties. A number

Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated two million people from Phnom Penh'when they came to power in April 1975

of themaalso- Rati withthe Viet Minh.
They continued links with Hanoi right
through the early 1970s, and’ only later
turned against Vietnam.

‘In Cambodia today, murderers live side-

_ by-side with their victims’ families, and may

now be ready to rejoin the government. A
US-sponsored genocide investigation team
will release ‘its results’soon, but there may
not be the political will to do anything with
them besides build another museum or
monument. Even if the split finally’ destroys
the KR as an army, their tactics and ideas
live on in a country unwilling to confront
the horrors of the past, unable to bring
those responsible to justice. A

Turkey, home to 50% of the Kurdish nation.

Vey enjoyed: Therefore the sa me US pla mies which:

patrolled the skies over Kurdistan’ to keep
Saddam out passed on ‘intelligence to help
Turkey come in and bomb.

Most Kurds now realize that America’s
Operation Provide Comfort brought them
no comfort at all. The US looked away
when Turkish forces bombed the’ region,
and when Hussein himself finally attacked,
the US responded ‘against southern Iraq,
doing nothing whatsoever to halt the Iraqi
advance ‘into Kurdistan! The PUK begged
America for help, but none was forthcom-
ing. If Kurds had any delusions about gen-
uine US concern for their plight, they have
now been shattered.

WILL THE PKK SEIZE THE DAY?

The only Kurdish party that has consistent-
ly refused to become a tool for foreign
intelligence agencies is the PKK. The PUK,
by seeking open support from Iran and then
making feeble appeals to the imperialist
West, is now weak and without credibility.
The KDP, by allying themselves with the
Butcher of Baghdad, are now seen by all to
be traitors to the Kurdish nation. It is now
up to the PKK to seize upon this opportuni-
ty and work towards the genuine liberation
of Kurdistan.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in
military and financial aid from the United
States and Europe, Turkey has not been
able to crush the PKK's revolution in
Turkish-occupied Kurdistan. If the PKK's
appeal and success should now spread and
blossom in northern Iraq, the Kurdish
national liberation movement will receive a
tremendous boost. With PKK strength
already established in the Kurdish regions
of Iran, the party seems set to become a
truly pan-Kurdish representative movement.
If so, Western powers will be faced with a
Middle Eastern policy dilemma like they
have never before encountered.*

For a good account of the feuding between the KDP
and the PUK, see Sheri Lazier’s book Martyrs,
Traitors and Patriots: Kurdistan after the Gulf War
published by Zed Books.

For current news and articles on the Internet about

the Kurdistan national liberation movement, see the

kurd-l archives on the Arm The Spirit homepage at
http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats.

“oy sce OCTOBER / NOVEMBER-1996-¢ LOVEAND RAGE e PAGE 19

Kissing Queers Quashed at CUNY Campus

By MICHELLE

s part of an ongoing crackdown on
Ave activism, two students at
Queensborough Community College

(QCC) were arrested last May at a school
party. They were kissing on the dance floor.
James Robinson and Brian Lewis were
dragged by campus security who tackled
them to the ground and shackled their feet
and hands. Robinson, an asthmatic, was so
severely traumatized that he required hos-

pitalization; yet it was not until the NYPD `

arrived that he received any medical
attention.

The two were charged with disorderly
conduct and resisting arrest. They were held
in jail for 30 hours until the District
Attorney's office decided there was no
cause to pursue the charges. QCC, however,
is still considering disciplinary charges
against Robinson and Lewis.

Vice-President of the Gay and Lesbian

Alliance on campus at Queensborough and -

co-chair of the National Lesbian, Gay and
Bisexual Student Caucus, Robinson is also a
student-elected board member of the United

States Student Association, a national orga- `

nization of student government members.
Lewis is president of the Advocates for

(Continued from page 3)

called the abortion debate. Like Republicans
and Democrats, “choice” and “life” are a
political system that has enabled the ascen-
dance of the New Right. This two-sided
political system, the “abortion debate,” has
also reinvigorated the credibility of funda-
mentalist Christianity, and has helped usher
in a new era of domestic terrorism and
organized white supremacism. Just as the
New Right has played Democrats and
Republicans off of one another, ultraright
promoters of fascism have benefited from
keeping the abortion debate between
“women’s choice” and the “fetus’s life”
intact.

Student Rights, a QCC group which reviews
student government and club spending on
campus.

The two men were ae ciel of dancing
“provocatively” with one another that
night—an action which has been cited as
disruptive behavior leading up to the arrest.
No other students who attended the dance

have come forward to attest to the truth of-

the administration’s claims.

The students believe the homophobic and
discriminatory atmosphere of the college, in
addition to their ongoing activism, was a
factor in their arrests.

The ejection from the dance and subse-
quent charges are in violation of several
federal, city and CUNY codes and laws.
Title IX of the Education Amendment of
1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis
of gender. The New York City
Administrative Code prohibits discrimina-
tion on the basis of sexual orientation in
public places; e.g. a CUNY campus. The
university's “Henderson Rules” prohibit
intentionally and/or forcibly preventing
others from exercising their rights.

When contacted in reference to this case,
QCC’s Dean of Students, Patricia Evanoski,
refused to comment: “The matter has not

Again, the roots of this “wedge” strategy
to produce a two-sided political “debate” go
back to the days of Goldwater, to the very
beginnings of the New Right. In 1964, the
Goldwater campaign created a television
commercial that, according to The New
York Times, “found a new way to symbol-
ize American hopes and fears.” It
dichotomized political issues along the lines
of “moral decay” (picture striptease joints)
versus wholesome American living (picture
girl scouts and lumberjacks).

What for us in the 1990s seems like the
standard method of characterizing politics
was then a shocking re-definition of politi-
cal advertising and political discourse, a
reprehensible re-shaping of complex politi-

been resolved and | don’t want to talk
about it at this time.” While the administra-
tion’s hesitation to act may seem promis-
ing, there still remains a threat that
Robinson and Lewis may face disciplinary
hearings on the matter. Whether or not the
college chooses to press charges against the
students, it is also possible that Robinson
and Lewis could sue QCC for violating their
human rights.

This arrest not only shines an unfavor-
able light on QCC as a homophobic campus,
it also questions the larger issue of “peace
officer” conduct on campus. With the addi-
tion of 160 security officers and 4 attack
dogs to be funded by a grant from the U.S.
Department of Justice, every CUNY campus
will have to confront the problems raised by
the increasingly heavy hand of repression.

At Hunter College, where there is a long-
standing legacy of student activism, there is
growing concern for the safely of the stu-
dents should any find themselves the tar-
gets of the administration-sponsored back-
lash. Officer Sanchez, a SAFE Team lieu-
tenant at Hunter, told a reporter from the
Hunter Envoy that he wished he had arrest-
ed the students himself. He reasoned that
had he made the arrests he would receive

cal — into a two-

sided moral debates that would “obviously
and frankly play on prejudices.”

Even Goldwater himself thought it me s

horrific; he “disowned” the commercial “
nothing but a racist film” and “ordered a
off the air.” But its legacy has been undeni-
ably powerful; the commercial had changed
history. Its “wedge” strategy for creating
moral debates out of political causes was
practically prophetic. This crucial TV com-
mercial was called “Choice.”

As we know, “Choice” didn’t help
Goldwater win the 1964 presidential elec-
tion. But electoral politics were forever

‘changed by this defeat. Building coalitions

is the antidote to the wedge strategy that
has shaped electoral politics since 1964.
Radical women now must strive to
remember how to build coalitions to resist
governmental regulation, not to plead for

overtime pay.

The SAFE Team is a group of over 30
“peace officers” with full arrest powers and
access to guns, that have been specially
trained to suppress student demonstrations.
If SAFE officers are rewarded with the
incentive of overtime for arresting students
for kissing or cracking their heads for
protesting, none of us are safe.

While it is possible that this case may
serve to warn other “peace officers” and/or
the administration as to the effects of
improper procedure and discriminatory
practices, it is more likely that nothing will
change. Anti-queer violence and bigotry
are frequently ignored on CUNY campuses.

Consequently there is good reason to fear
that this incident will be pushed under-
ground again. An August 20 article in the
Village Voice brought this incident to public
attention. For this many. are thankful. -

For the many other activists and students
at CUNY, queer and non-queer alike, this
case is cause for alarm. The increasing
number and aggressiveness of CUNY’s
security forces are creating an atmosphere
that is intolerably repressive and complete-
ly contrary to the professed aims of an
institution of higher education.*

Brian Lewis and James Robinson of a Community College ucia ata ates. pas for so on as apo floor
-. = Di al E

ae ‘protection. Radical women
must strive Lo build information 1etworks _

Tesque e Renventions and their pe o
“moral decline”"—a phrase which first
gained currency through the commercial
“Choice” and the 1964 elections. To ward
off a palatable fascism, we must first detect
the sneaky ultraright extremists who are
stealthing toward a new millennium.*®

Sources:

Freedman, Samuel G. “The First Days of the Loaded
Political Image,” New York Times, Sunday,
September 1, 1996: 30.

Viguerie, Richard. “Ends and Means,” The New
Right Papers, edited by Robert W. Whitaker (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982).

Also see Ninia Baehr’s Abortion Without Apology: A
Radical History for the 1990s from South End Press
for more on history of radical women in the 1960s.

(Continued from page 7)

an ABC newsletter with information on

many prison-related struggles. To get their
newsletter or to get in touch, write to ABC-——
_ Melbourne, PO Box 199, East Brunswick,

3057 Victoria, Australia. ABC Brisbane’s
address is PO Box 558, South Brisbane
4101, Queensland, Australia. Email:
abcbris@byteback.apana.org.au

SAVE GEORGE SKATZES!

On Jan. 30, 1996, George Skatzes was sen-
tenced to death for the murders of two other
prisoners during the 11-day uprising in
April 1993 at the maximum security
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in
Lucasville, OH. During the uprising George
acted as a peacekeeper and spokesman for
the prisoners. Many prisoners credit George
with saving their lives during the riot.
Former hostage guards also stated under
oath that George helped protect three
guards. He’s been sentenced to death
because he refused to cooperate (snitch) with
prison officials, who promised -not to prose-
cute him if he would “cooperate.” As a
spokesman during the uprising, he-became a
symbol and thus a target. We can’t let him

-address as well. To get their resource guide

be killed for the courageous stand he took
during the uprising. To make a financial
contribution to his defense fund, or to help
organize support for George, contact his
outside support group: Mrs. Jackie Bowers,
PO Box 1591, Marion, OH 43301-1591.

RAZE THE WALLS EXPANDS

Raze the Walls! now has a Florida contact

or to get more information, prisoners in
that area of the country should contact
Raze the Walls, 1913 S. Semoran Blvd #B,
Orlando, FL 52822.

ABOLISH -PRISONS—
NOW, LATER, OR NEVER?

The question of whether we support the
complete abolition of prisons or not has
been an ongoing debate in the anarchist
prison movement. There are many impor-
tant questions that flow from this discus-
sion that we as a movement need to
explore more deeply. There are different
views within the anarchist movement on
these questions. Questions like what would
an anarchist society do with people who
commit real anti-social crimes (like rape or
murder) if there are no prisons? And what
sort of system of justice do we advocate in
place of the current one? How would it
work? And are we against incarceration in

PAGE 20 + LOVE AND. RAGE * OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

principle or just in the way it is practiced
under capitalism? Since prisoners have the
most direct experience with prisons and the
criminal justice system, Love & Rage would
like to hear from people in prison on these
and other related questions. Send us your
thoughts on prisons and prison abolition to
either be printed in Love & Rage or as a
pamphlet on prison abolition.*

Tupac Shakur

(Continued from page 1)

more clearly feminist way then most Hip-
Hop odes to “black queens” or “black god-
desses.” For example, in “Keep Ya Head
Up,” he expresses support for women on
welfare, comes out as pro-choice, and says
women should leave men who aren't
respectful and sensitive to their needs. He
had a consistent feminist streak in his
nationalist aesthetic within what is over-
whelmingly a misogynist culture.

Tupac's brushes with the law were
numerous and included incidents that range
from noble to inexcusable. In October 1993
he was arrested for shooting two off-duty
police officers in Atlanta. Credible accounts
say he was un-arresting a Black man being
brutalized by the cops. A month later he
was arrested for allegedly participating in a
sexual assault of a Black woman in his
hotel. In December 1994 Shakur was con-
victed of sexual abuse and in February
1995 he was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in an
upstate New York prison. He was released
on bail after eight months, pending appeal.

Tupac's trial brought inconclusive evi-
dence regarding his personal actions in the

sexual assault, as opposed to the clear
involvement of his associates. But he
showed no remorse at having the friends he
did, nor their actions. Tupac’s account was
that he did not rape the woman or force her
to perform oral sex. But after his own con-
sensual encounter with her, he fell asleep in
the next room while she testified that she
was screaming for his help while being
assaulted by his friends. When the woman
later emotionally appealed to Tupac regard-
ing what had happened, he dismissed it and
avoided her. This glaring contradiction to
his artistic politics was unforgivable to
some, while ignored by others.

During his trial for sexual assault, he
survived what seemed to be another exe-
cution-style hit. In November 1994, out-
side a music studio in Times Square,
New York City, an alleged robbery ended
with him shot five times at close range.
One bullet grazed his head and one
pierced his scrotum.

Some of Tupac’s last interviews broad-
cast on radio stations since his death alter-
nately renounce and retain the “thug-life”
which-he chose to personify, and which he
had tattooed on his stomach. In one inter-

view he said he was too “skinny” to run
around playing gangsta. In another, he
bragged that some risk must come with the
easy money he was making, as if his bloody
gangsta’ encounters were both glory and
fate, a conclusion his last video (filmed a
month before his death) implies.

While this should prove a marketable
myth for some fans, we should be clear that
Tupac was ultimately no “victim” but the
master of his own fate. Whether modeling
on the runways of Milan or socializing in

Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight leaving the Tyson fight on Sept. 7, less than a minute before Tupac was shot.

the mansions of Malibu, he was no prisoner
of the inner city. White supremacy and cap-
italism did not kill him. Implying such
would be to deny a brilliant young man
with radical ideas and financial security the
self-determination of his own actions.
Despite his machismo and low self-esteem,
he had more opportunity than almost any
other young Black males in the ghetto.
Allowing him to be a poster child of that
plight is to deny those Black men their
experience, including the many who make
better choices with less opportunity.

Two days after his death, in Brooklyn,
the Rev. Herbert Daughtry eulogized Tupac.
Daughtry remembered him as a child in the
early '80s. “When he was ten years old he
stood right here in front of me and I asked
him what he wanted to be when he grew
up. He answered, ‘a revolutionary.” But, he
added, Mr. Shakur did not appear to know
how to be a revolutionary. This might be a
bit harsh. Many radicals recognized by his-_
tory have had worse character flaws. Those
should not be excused. Tupac Shakur can
be seen as a revolutionary cultural worker
in the absence of a mass freedom move-
ment. The absence of that movement and
the decadence of this society is responsible
for his contradictions and those of Hip-Hop
culture not being transcended.

That said, the Hip-Hop generation has a
responsibility to struggle for self-worth if it
is to avoid self-destruction. In the wake of
new.hollow:pleas ta: Stop.The Violence! in
Tupac's names we must remember that
Tupac Shakur's legacy should not be made
into a call for self-esteem and a hollow cry
of “can't we just get along.” Rather if we
can build a movement that’s revalutionary,
feminist, and that recognizes that the num-
ber one enemy in our streets is the capital-
ists who keeps us poor (and their police),
we will foster a thriving culture based on
unity and mutual respect. It is in the con-
text of a thriving mass movement that
artists like Tupac can potentially overcome
their contradictions and live up to their
revolutionary potential. *

—_—_— eee

(Continued from page 7)

gang leaders and members. Charging Us
with being spokespersons of revolutionary
groups opposed to premeditated murder.

After being moved back to the Indiana
State Prison on 7-3-96 and given a few
punches and shoves on the way up in the
elevator to the lock up unit, the D.O.C.
launched a full scale attack to convict Us.
To send a message to the other 1,600 pris-
oners here. You have no right to speak!
Stand up and we shall knock you down
with trumped up charges! Refuse to be ter-
rorized into silence, refuse to be terrorized
into complicity with premeditated murder
and we will brutalize and torture you.

As We uncovered evidence and docu-
mentation that the investigator outright hid
in his report and manufactured evidence,
Our staff witnesses who were to testify on
Our behalf were threatened and brought up
on charges by the Internal Affairs Dept. for
“breaking security” and “fraternizing with
inmates.” As We tried to prepare a defense,
the D.O.C. refused to give Us Our personal
property and legal materials. As We tried to
alert people on the streets to the repressive
and unethical conduct of the D.O.C., all Our
incoming and outgoing mail started being
delayed for weeks at a time. As We persisted
and still uncovered more evidence that the
charges were false and evidence manufac-

tured, as We continued to collect statements
from staff who outright contradicted or
refuted the lies, the investigator attributed to
them the D.O.C. moved to remove Our lay
advocate (prison type lawyer) off Our cases
and rush Us to disciplinary hearings.

Beginning on 7-22-96 to 7-24-96, less
than a week after they returned Ziyon for
approximately 80 minutes before putting
him to death, We went to court and they
carried out another execution. As We intro-
duced Our evidence, poked holes in the
state's case, We were told “i have to find
you guilty” and that he did. Convicting six
of Us and finding four not guilty of all
charges. Now how can 10 people be con-
spiring to riot and six be guilty and four
not? i'll tell you how. Because the six con-
victed are the same politically developed
and outspoken of the 10. The six have a
rich history of organizing and educating
other prisoners. And five out of the six
have lengthy dreadlocks.

i was given a total of four years, Akono
five years, Baye three years, Idrix one year,
Kopano one year, and Sekou three years.
All to be served in a supermax torture
chamber. Why? For daring to speak out. For
daring to raise Our voices against the death
merchants of Indiana. For taking a stance
against inhumanity, for the next several
years We shall be buried alive in a super-
max prison. Denied all human contact with

other prisoners, subjected to social isolation
and sensory deprivation. Locked down in
an all white cage with a 24 hours shining
light for 23 hours a day.

People if Indiana is allowed to single out
New Afrikan prisoners who are politically
conscious and active because they spoke
out, if the D.O.C. is allowed to frame Us on
bogus charges with no outcry from the
public and the political community, it will
set an ugly and dangerous precedent. It will
send the signal to the D.O.C. that you can
single out Afrikan men for torture and bru-
talization whenever they dare question the
barbarity of the state. It will signal to the
thousands of politically conscious and
active prisoners that if you take a stance
and are attacked We will not support you.
We will not show solidarity with you. We
took a stance because Our consciousness
dictated that We do so. We are not slaves to
be shackled, beaten, strapped to gurneys
and be pumped full of poison and say noth-
ing! We are not beasts to be strapped to
electric chairs to be fried until Our eyes pop
from Our heads as the D.O.C. did to Ajamu
Nassor on 12-8-94.

We refuse to allow a racist and genocidal
system to systematically destroy and murder
Us and say nothing! We got a right to
speak! To shout! and if necessary to scream!

Support Us because tomorrow it could be
you or someone you love strapped to that
gurney or electric chair. It could be you
who speak out only to be terrorized and
tortured. The D.O.C. must not be allowed to
use Us as examples to the thousands of

other prisoners, must not be allowed to
carry on its racist tradition of singling out
New Afrikan prisoners for persecution
because they are political. They must not be
allowed to terrorize into silence the hun-
dreds of young New Afrikan men who are
slowly throwing off the chains of a slave
and parasitical kkkriminal mentality to
reclaim their humanity.

Take a stance on Our behalf and the
countless others. Take a stance because We
did! Demand that these charges be dropped!
Demand and investigation into why 10 New
Afrikan men were snatched out of 1,600
prisoners and not one white prisoner was
placed under investigation! Demand an
investigation into the racially stereotypical
comments of warden Al Parke that he is
targeting “Black Gangs” and revolutionary
leadership. Don’t white gangs exist at ISP?!

Demand an investigation into why Ziyon
Yisrayah was tortured for 80 minutes before
being murdered and why did the D.O.C. try
to cover up such torture by sending-his body
to a local funeral home to be embalmed
against the wishes of his family.

Give us freedom or give us death!

This essay, written on behalf of the Indiana Six, is
the introductory essay to the pamphlet Who Are the
Indiana Six, available for $5 from the Brew. City
Anti-Authoritarian Collective (BCAC), PO Box
93312, Milwaukee, WI 53203. Funds raised will
support the campaign for the Indiana Six.

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 + LOVE AND. RAGE © PAGE. 21

See UA

LETTERS

WHY THE ANARCHISTS LOST THE SPANISH REVOLUTION
Response to “The Revolutionary Anarchist Tradition”

By WAYNE PRICE
C hris Day’s article “The Revolutionary
Anarchist Tradition” (L&R Vol. 7 No.
4) points to the pro-organizational
current in the history of revolutionary anar-
chism. He notes that there have been anar=
chists who have advocated greater organi-
zational coherence and serious theoretical
and strategic thinking by the anarchist
movement. In general, | agree with him
(although he rather brushes off Malatesta,
the great pro-organization revolutionary
anarchist; a great deal can be learned from
Malatesta). This is a much better position
than, for example, one calling for the aban-
donment of anarchism in favor of a new
synthesis dominated by Marxism.

However, when pushing for more orga-
nizational structure and theory, it is possi-
ble to go off the rails and end up advo-
cating an authoritarian and dictatorial
program. The danger of this appears in
Chris’s discussion of the failure of the
anarchists in the Spanish Revolution/Civil
War of 1936-39.

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION

As Chris notes, in 1936 the Spanish armed
forces and fascists, led by Franco, attempt-
ed to seize power in a well-planned coup.
They sought to overthrow the Popular Front
government, a bourgeois liberal and reform
socialist coalition administration. With
almost no help from the Popular Front, the
workers organized themselves and threw
back the military in two-thirds of Spain. At
this time, the anarchists (organized in the
FAI) led a union federation {the CNT) with
half the working class of Spain and most of
the workers in Catalonia, the most industri-
alized region of Spain, and they had much
support among the peasantry. Under anar-
chist inspiration, workers took over facto-

ries and other enterprises and ran ure

democratically. Peasants voluntarily «
tivized their farms. Terssortation and
communication were run by. workers’ com-
mittees. Police were replaced by workers’
patrols. Much of the armed forces were led
by the anarchists.

In spite of this, they eventually lost the
struggle against fascism. They were to aban-
don all their principles, joining the capitalist
government (including holding the Ministry
of Justice). How did this happen?

` As Chris says, a turning point- came
early in’ the Civil War. After beating the
fascists, for the time being, in Catalonia,
two anarchist leaders met with the (power-
less) president of the regional government.
He offered to resign but asked for collabo-
ration instead. Garcia Oliver, one of the
anarchists, explained why they chose
cooperation with the capitalist state: “The
CNT and the FAI decided on collaboration
and democracy, renouncing revolutionary
totalitarianism which would have led ‘to
the strangulation of the revolution by the
anarchist and Confederal [CNT] dictator-
ship... [choosing] between Libertarian
Communism, which meant an anarchist
dictatorship, and democracy which meant
collaboration.”

That is, they saw only two alternatives:

(1) The FAI-CNT takes power by itself. But
the FAI was a minority even within the CNT;

- probably most CNT unionists were not anar-

chists. There were many other workers and

Anarchist agitator Federica Montseny addresses the Spanish people, 1936

others who did not agree with the full poli-
tics of the FAI-CNT. In the country at large,
half the working class was organized into
the reform socialist union (UGT) and others
were not in any union. Therefore if the FAI
overthrew the state and established itself as
ruler, the result would have been a one-
party-state dictatorship. As far as it goes, the
logic of this argument seems correct.

(2) Working together with all other anti-
fascist forces, including not only the reform
socialists but the various capitalist parties,
and accepting the existing hegemony of the
liberal capitalist state. This started them on
a road which led to anarchist ministers in a
capitalist government, the defeat of the rev-
olution, and the victory of fascism in Spain
(shortly before the start of World War I).

Chris indicates that the anarchists should
have taken the first alternative, even
though “support for the CNT was not uni-
versal.” But the anarchist were right on this
point: seizure of power by the FAI-CNT
would have created “revolutionary totali-
tarianism [and] anarchist dictatorship.”

There was, however, a third alternative.
They could have called for the federation
of the popular committees and councils
(juntas): the factory councils, collectivized
peasant villages, soldiers” committees, work-
ers’ patrols, etc. Federated together, these
could have become an alternate power to
the Catalonian government—and, spread
nationally, to the Spanish state—a situation
of dual power. Such a federal structure
could have overthrown the state and carried
on revolutionary war against Franco—with-
out creating a party-state dictatorship.

This would have been more, rather than
less, democratic than the liberal state.
Different political tendencies would have
been represented according to how popular
they really were among the oppressed.
Capitalist pis would have jad IS

. Coalitions eneen SE and reform

socialists) would have been based on the
real balance of forces. As the working peo-
ple became more radicalized, their regional
and national representatives would be more
revolutionary.

The program of a federation of councils

_ was raised from the beginning of the

Spanish Revolution to the end, by Leon
Trotsky and his few Spanish followers. It is
true that Trotsky’s advocacy of councils
was purely instrumental—as a weapon for
overthrowing the exiting state, not as
framework for a new society. We know
from the Russian Revolution that he was
willing to ban non-Bolshevik socialist par-
ties from the soviets (councils) and to turn
the soviets into mere tools of the
Bolshevik party. But this does not excuse

-the anarchists from failing to raise the

program of a federation of councils as an
alternate power.

FRIENDS OF DURRUTI

Chris repeats his error when discussing the
Friends of Durruti. This was a regrouping of
truly revolutionary anarchists in opposition
to the FAI-CNT leadership. Chris summa-
rizes their position, “The Friends of Durruti
also proposed the creation of a
Revolutionary Junta to be made up of
themselves and other groups that opposed

PAGE 22 « LOVE AND RAGE + OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996

participation in the Republican govern=
ment.” That is, he claims that they advocat-

ed rule by their organization. Not at all.
Actually they proposed a national coun-
cil elected by workers from their mass
unions. Their program, “Towards a Fresh
Revolution,” states: “Establishment of a
Revolutionary Junta or National Defense
Council ... Members of the Revolutionary
Junta will be elected by democratic vote in
union organizations.” This is similar to the
program for workers' and peasants' coun-
cils (although not quite as good since it
required working through the existing
union cues. Of course they wanted
elves and os, like guna to be

anor were SS was a UL mene” "

ratic structure, not a party-state.

Unfortunately, it was too late to cia ra

Spanish Revolution.

LESSONS FOR ANARCHISTS

Perhaps Love & Rage could run a series on
the history of the Spanish Revolution. It has
important lessons for today. Time and
again revolutions have thrown up popular
councils and similar structures, only to be
destroyed by the revolutionary “leaders.”

Spanish Anarchist militia preparing to go to the front

Today’s radicals are divided between the
reform socialists, who believe that
“democracy” requires them to support the
existing bureaucratic-military states and
Western imperialism, and the “revolution-
aries.” These are mostly Maoist, or’
Castroite, or nationalist, and genuinely
desire to overthrow the existing states—in
order to replace them with totalitarian

_party-states. They see their parties as

becoming the new states.
Anarchism (or anti- authoritarian social-
ism), for all its many faults is” a

placing. the self organization of the

inter t the

sary, the point of Chris's article, But anti=—
authoritarians should consciously use just
as much centralization and repression as

is necessary and should deliberately work
to keep the communal organization as
decentralized and radically-democratic as
possible. Exactly how to maintain this bal-
ance is a matter of political judgment, but
we must have no ambiguity on our opposi-
tion to party-states.k

Christopher Day R esponds:

ayne mischaracterizes my position
We suggesting that I believe the

CNT-FAI should have created an
“anarchist dictatorship.” I agree with
Wayne that by posing this as the only
alternative to collaboration with the capi-
talist state the CNT-FAI leadership was
ignoring the possibility of establishing a
real revolutionary alternative in the form of
a federation of the popular committees and
councils. But I also believe that the respon-
sibilities of the CNT-FAI went beyond
merely “calling” for such a federation.
(Wayne’s reference to Trotsky underlines
the impotency of simple advocacy of a rev-
olutionary program. It is just as important
to build the capacity to implement it.) As
the single most powerful revolutionary
organization they also had an obligation to
strike as decisively against the remnants of
the capitalist state as they had against the
Francoists and thereby create the condi-
tions in which such a federation could
actually take power. Instead they excused
their vacillation with nonsensical talk of an
“anarchist dictatorship” and lost a valuable
revolutionary opportunity.

] agree with Wayne that “anti-authori-
tarians should consciously use just as
much centralization and repression as is
necessary and should deliberately work to
keep the communal organization as decen-
tralized and radically-democratic as possi-
ble.” But these are empty generalizations
without reference to which measures we
think are appropriate when and where.
That is why discussions of actual historical
experiences are so important. Taking

responsibility for smashing the capitalist
state and counter-revolutionary organiza-
tions is a repressive act that would have
centralized (at least for the moment) power
in the hands of the CNT-FAI.
Understanding the dangers inherent in
such a situation, I think we should be clear
that the failure of the CNT-FAI to take
such action was irresponsible.

The CNT may have been a minority in
Spain as a whole but in Catalonia it had
the popular support to push the revolution
to a new level. Its leaders chose not to.
How such action might have influenced the
course of events in the rest of Spain (or the
world) we will never know.

Wayne accuses me of claiming that the
Friends of Durruti “advocated rule by their
organization” when the passage of mine he
quotes clearly says that the Junta would be
“made up of themselves and other groups.”
I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that the
Friends of Durruti did not believe such a
Junta should be democratically elected.

Finally, Wayne is correct when he says
we (as: anarchists) “must have no ambigui-
ty on our opposition to party-states.” But
the political organizations other than the
CNT-FAI that Wayne would want to par-
ticipate in the revolutionary federation of
committees and councils were all statist
parties. So we should also be clear that
there is no guarantee against statist results
except the conscious determination and
ability of the oppressed classes to defend
their gains against the forces of counter-
revolution and to spread the revolution to
the rest of the world.*

EN Ua Fei TOORE

ABOLISH PRISONS

To Love and Rage,

Greetings! Just finished the August/Sept.
issue and wanted to say a few words in
response to Eric Bryden of Seattle, WA and
his “Down to Earth Anarchism” letter. I am
a prisoner here in Pennsylvania, who’s
served almost nine years now, and a large
chunk of that in the hole. I’ve done a lot of
reading in that time, as well as talking to
people and watching how the prison
administration deals with people. I’ve also
taken a college course in criminology. So
while I carry no government certification, I
feel fairly qualified to speak about crime.

Eric asks what are “we” to do with
rapists, murderers, drug dealers and anti-
social predators, and goes on to state that
some people are locked away from society
for good, legitimate reasons. I don’t intend’
to defend murder or rape. But I can say
that quite frankly, society, which Mr.
Bryden seems to think needs defending, is
in many ways the cause of these crimes.

Folks are raised to believe that the acquisi-

tion of things is the route to happiness.
And monopoly capitalism is not designed
to allow much room at the top. So for the
vast majority, especially. blacks, Latinos and
Native Americans, “the Amerikkkan dream”
is totally out of reach. Everyone reacts to
this realization differently. But hostility and
anger are not uncommon responses. To live
in a ghetto where the TV pumps a constant
flow of images of all the things you're |
never allowed to have is a powerful stimu-
lus toward crime. It is my personal obser-
vation that the great majority of property
crimes and murders are the result of a
desire for things a person is taught to
desire, of of the pursuit of drugs and alco-
hol which are used to squash the unhappi-
ness most poor people feel at the injustice
of unequal opportunity.

It seems likely to me that a new social
system is the goal of the revolution. And
who better to help build it than those most
familiar with the drawbacks of the old?
Prison is full of people who have done a lot
of reflecting on their lives. And who have
great potential. Sadly, they lack a focus for
“their energies because they see no future.

RONU needs a pupos i in aie an pis

all classes.

Now as to rape, I see this as a symptom
of the same problems. Property. rights and
the possession of things are pounded into
people's heads at an early age. These ideas
are seldom if ever even considered by most
people. They ‘take it as a given that you can
and should own things. And sadly, this
attitude is even projected onto human
beings. Marriage vows and expression like

“my wife,” my kids,” are taken very literal-
ly,. Many studies have been published
showing that rape is usually about power
and contro] more than sex. And without
digging too deeply into that aspect of it, I
do want to say that the rapists I've encoun-
tered here were some of the most angry
and hostile folks I’ve ever met. Long years
of oppression and disenfranchisement came
before their eventual crimes. A re-organiza-
tion of society, it seems to me, would
remove the source of this hostility and
alienation for the most part. As well as the
concept of ownership or property rights.
Let's face it, we're born naked and you
can't take anything with you.

Property rights and ownership are a
myth perpetrated by the deedholders and
owners to live well at the expense of the
many and maintain their hegemony. You
can't own spaceship earth. But it’s a power-
ful all-pervading myth that requires all the
world's governments, laws, court systems,
police forces and armies to maintain and
enforce. The concept of a few winners and
the majority of losers is responsible not
only for the anger, hatred, hostility and
lack of concern for our fellow human
beings so prevalent in the world today, it is
the source of a great deal of insecurity, sui-
cide, mental health problems, alienation,
lack of self-esteem, unhappiness, and a
general confusion over why “things,” once
acquired, don’t bring happiness. These feel-
ings lead to the lion’s share of drug use. I
don’t mean to tell you that once the system
is done away with and we begin to live a
saner way of life, crime will go away. But
since freedom is a two-edged sword, entail-
ing on the one hand that one can do as one
likes, and on the other that one must be
responsible for one’s actions, it seems likely
that most of the time problems will be dealt
with on a case by case basis as they arise.
Laws and prisons must be done away with.
They serve no good purpose, and are of no
positive use to anyone. Society included.
The causes of crime are closely tied to the
current organization of society and when
the causes are removed, the lion’s share of
the problems will go with it. And I submit
to you for consideration the idea that peo-

ple bo al commit acts seen as atrocious

IE may sá a suffering sis

ous mental problems.
Hopefully, this gives you some food for

thought, and I would welcome any feed-

back anyone might have.

Robert Wilcox “Treetop” Lewis
A.J. 3326

P.O. Box 99901

Pittsburgh, PA 15233-0901

Circle is a regional political alliance

based on practical applications to
enhance ongoing projects, to assist the devel-
opment of new projects, and to help individ-
uals stay in touch with the larger anarchist
movement. We hope that our regional circle,
once organized, will lend strength to the
existing anarchist federations and networks.

Currently we are conducting a “roll call”
in order to better understand the nature
and scope of our movement, and also cre-
ating a speakers’ bureau with a network of
anarchist-oriented speaking locations that
will facilitate educational tours. The pro-
posed projects include alternative schools,
study groups, mutual aid systems for the
personal health and welfare of members
and other activities.

Individuals as well as groups living on
the Atlantic seaboard (loosely defined as
spanning from Montréal to Washington,
D.C.) are encouraged to participate. The
developing structure is based on anti-
authoritarian, democratic process. We meet
about twice a month in New York City.*

Contact the following address or call Alexis for
more information or to participate in the roll call:
Atlantic Anarchist Circle
PO Box 42531
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-563-8720

Té recently formed Atlantic Anarchist

LETTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Mother of Slain Prison Activist
Appeals for Funds, Connections

the prison guards believed responsible

for her son’s death was rejected and
now her legal route is thrown in doubt. For
her pioneering efforts in having the guards
charged, Carmetta now faces significant
legal bills that must be paid, before she can
make another move through the courts. But
Carmetta would like all those who have
supported her to know that the fight is not
over yet! Not until some measure of justice
has been had.

As people all over Southern Ontario have
come to know, Carmetta Gentles, a single
working mother of adult children, has lent
her voice to any and every struggle dealing
with police and prison brutality that has
arisen in the nearly three years since her
son’s death.

Robert “Tex” Gentles died in 1993 in
Kingston Penitentiary, while six guards
were on top of him, one whose knee was on
the back of Robert’s throat, and after they
had excessively maced his cell. The official
cause of death is listed as “positional
asphyxiation.”

(Cies Gentles’ last appeal to charge

At the time of his death, Robert was
becoming prominent among conscious
Caribbean-Canadian prisoners. He was a
founding member of the Prison Violence
Project.

Carmetta is now hoping to make contact
with any of the families of those recently
shot dead by police in the Toronto area, as
well as those who are struggling around
issues of police brutality. If these campaigns
can work together, they will be stronger.

October 24 will mark the third year since
Robert Gentles’ death. On this date for the
last two years, Carmetta, her family and
supporters held a vigil in Kingston, Ont.
Carmetta intends to hold another one there
this year, but is also appealing to have the
campaign and the issues surrounding it
represented at the next mass event protest-
ing the Tory Government in Toronto, also
planned for the weekend of October 24.*

Please send all donations
and correspondence to:
Justice for Gentles Campaign
c/o P.O. Box 57069, Jackson Stn.
Hamilton, Ontario L8M 4W9

L&R Back Issues. We Got ‘Em. Boxes Full. {only $1 each...

Aug/Sept 1996: Attica commemmoration, Revolution-
ary Anarchist Tradition, SUTAUR Interview, review of
How the Irish Became White, Riot in Quebec City...
Aug 1996: Special Edition Summer Broadsheet, with
Convention protests, reproductive freedom, Lessons of
Chicago 1968, 2-color “voting victim” poster...
June/July 1996: CUNY student movement, Continuing
Crime of Black Imprisonment, Zapatistas & Civil Society,

Prison Struggle in MN, General Strikes in Ontario...
Apr/May 1996: Palestine, Control Units in MD,
Nigeria, Ron Tabor's Anarchist Critique of
Marxism (part 4)...

Nov/Dec 1995: Million Man March,

Immigrant Bashing, Chinese Anarchism,

interviews with Chumbawamba € with EZLN's Marcos,

2-color EZLN poster...

Aug/Sept 1995: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Zapatista

Consultation, Oklahoma Bombing, Infoshops...

Mar/Apr 1995: EZLN: anti-vanguardists?, Author &

Authority, Lessons of the Bandung Conference., Quibilah

Shabazz, Pro-Choice Revolution or Reform...

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Afrocentricity vs. Homosexuality, Palestinian Intifada

Continues, Mexico, 1994 Elections...

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GRANTS FOR ANARCHIST WRITERS

helps foster the theoretical develop-

ment of anarchism by awarding
grants to writers working on themes perti-
nent to anarchism.

We believe it is necessary to create a
space for critical scholarship outside of the
conventional sources of intellectual work. In
contrast to universities and publishers the
IAS supports theoretical work because of its
critical significance and social relevance.

We give grants for essays, books and
translations of the basis of several consider-
ations, including the importance of a work
within a comprehensive and reconstructive
critique of domination, the financial need
of a particular author, and the author's plan
for completion and distribution of the fin-
ished work. We award a total of three thou-
sand dollars in January and June of each
year in sums of five hundred to three thou-
sand dollars. The deadlines for grant appli-

Te Institute for Anarchist Studies

cations are December 15 and May 15.

The IAS is actively engaged in
fundraising in order to give out regular
grants, support operations and establish
an endowment. The IAS is generously
supported by donors of varying economic
circumstances. Please consider ‘giving a
contribution to the IAS.

We also produce a bi-annual newsletter
and will sponsor a variety of projects in the
attempt to nurture a broad and intensive
discussion of theoretical concerns pertinent
to anarchism. *

For more information please send a
self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Institute for Anarchist Studies
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OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 1996 °. LOVE AND RAGE + PAGE 23